 Excellencies, dear colleagues, from all around the world, ladies and gentlemen, it is really a great pleasure, but also a privilege to wish you all a warm welcome to this UNU-Wider Development Conference. The topic with us we see it not be more timely. Inequality has once again moved center stage in our profession and has, during the past year, captured attention big time. In relation to many developing countries, a concern is that while growth has been achieved in the last 15 to 20 years, it has often been associated with increased inequality. This implies, some would say, that millions of people have not been getting their fair share of the benefits of growth. At the same time, global interpersonal inequality appears to have been going down, and contentious analytical challenges and policy issues are looming. Few places are better suited to discussing and deliberating on these issues than UNU-Wider. Indeed, Wider's mandate is to provide a forum for professional interaction and the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmental sustainable growth. UNU-Wider has a long tradition and a solid track record in investing in research and data gathering on inequality right from its earliest years, almost three decades ago. We have over the years tried hard to live up to our mandate and keep the wider perspective live and kicking. Now, why is inequality such a crucial topic? Well, first of all, why does mandate dictate that we should carry out research on the conditions which affect the world's poorest people? Clearly, what happens to the poorest of the poor depends not only on the aggregate rate of growth. It also depends on how income is distributed. Growth is more pro-poor if inequality is lower, as Francois Bourguignon keeps reminding us. Second, as economists, we rightly worry about trade-offs. Some would say this is in our genes. But it's not at all clear, especially in the developing country context, that achieving more equality or carrying out smart, redistributive policies lead to less growth. As for example, Andy Berg has pointed out. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that policies such as providing healthcare and education and even direct income support for the poor provide low-income individuals with the means and capabilities to fully participate in society. This helps boost, rather than slow down, economic progress in addition to being valuable in their own right. I for one believe it is important to look out for trade-offs, but synergies also play a critical role in development. And I hope this conference can help identify where they are important. On a personal note, I can't help add that I did my thesis in 1977-78 on growth and income distribution in developing countries, and these challenging issues have been with me ever since. We're fortunate that Nobel laureate Amataya Sen, who is also the author of the very first wider working paper some 30 years ago, agreed to be interviewed in preparation of the 2013 wider annual lecture given last year by President Artisari in this room. Here is what Amataya had to say about the theme of this conference on that occasion. You see, I think there was a kind of contrast, which had been present in the development literature for a very long time. There's one side which is saying, well, development is mainly getting the investment climate right and so forth. And the other is the development is mainly concerned with making human beings both more equipped, more free, more really free, not just freedom as permission but freedom as real ability to do things that they have reason to value both individually as well as social beings in terms of their contribution to the society. And that includes also participation, public discussion, public reasoning, sharing values, sharing concerns, sharing doubts, sharing results and determination. Now, I think in this approach it is interesting that the question of Kerala came up. It was an interesting thing that Kerala, to some extent, reason to history originally being not a part of the British Empire, being a native empire, Native Kingdom, the Travancore and Cochin. These were, they could carry some of the different policies in British India and for education very early. But even though, even with that, even though the average for Indian education was about, I think, 13% literacy when the British left. But the Kerala figure was in the 40s higher but not dramatically higher. But then with independence came very big burst in education first but then on the basis of a nearly universally educated literate population there was strong pressure for better public health care. And then the health care also became one of the four pieces of Kerala. At that time when I was defending it and so many of the people involved and some of them actually in wider, defending it, the critique used to be that, well, can a poor country, poor state in this case afford it. The argument was that yes it could because even though education and health care may look expensive but they're primarily labor intensive work and therefore in a poorer country labor is also cheaper so that even though even you may need more action it costs much less in a poorer country than in a richer country. And through this process economic growth itself would be stimulated. Now the reason why it's worth seeing today is decades have gone by and Kerala instead of being one of the poorest countries, poorest states in India, has become one of the richest states. This is of course exactly what was anticipated by those who were pushing for that line. It's not that you continue to deny economic growth but understand that economic growth also depends on the quality of you and being that are being cultivated through a deliberate public policy and social commitment. So now actually sometimes people who look at it say well Kerala can afford these things because it is a richer state but that wasn't where the dialogue was earlier when the dialogue was about Kerala not being able to afford it because it's a poor country. But I'm delighted that we've come to a stage now when Kerala can be one of the richest states can more easily afford it and this has happened to some extent in Tamil Nadu, in Himachal Pradesh and to varying extent in different parts of India. And similarly if you look at many other countries Sri Lanka has been an old example across Sri Lanka many other countries across the world but there in a very big way in the under the period of the presidency of Cardozo and later under Lula converted what was a kind of unnamed growth into a participatory growth and the Brazilian economy with universal healthcare close to universal literacy has turned the page in a way the rest of the world many parts of the rest of the world have not. I think one of the really exciting engagement is how intellectual discussions could make a real difference to the practical world in which we live and the contrast between practicality and theory that's one of the I think terrible contrast is I think I never lose my enthusiasm for arguing against that because ultimately there's nothing as important as what we think in determining what we do what we act and what kind of lives we end up leading Now these words help set the scene for this conference and they do stress the socioeconomic analysis and policymaking also when it's hard-nosed can go hand in hand in the search for a better world Turning to the program you will have seen that it is big and ambitious this is as it should be this is a wider development conference and we're grateful that a large sample of the words leading specialists have accepted to come together here in Helsinki including both an excellent set of invited speakers and authors of submitted papers which were selected in a very competitive process no less than 85% of submissions had to be turned down we simply don't have space for 600 plus people I wish to highlight among the topics to be discussed across country databases on inequality wider has been at the forefront of such databases because of the WID, the World Income in Equality Database and I'm happy that both professors Andrea Cornier and Tony Shorrocks, my two predecessors who established and developed the WID are with us on this occasion we all build on the hard work of those who came before us the WID is freely available and we have yesterday uploaded the updated 3.0B version which includes almost 2000 new observations and data up until 2012 I invite you to take a look I invite you to use the database and as an aside the number of downloads of the WID is one of the criteria our donors monitor when you go to the wider website you will find a wealth of information and use this includes links to our monthly newsletter the wider angle it also includes the news that the UN on 2 September selected wider development on the climate change project as one among seven projects in the world to watch this followed a global competition with submissions from more than 40 countries let me highlight that this conference there will be a special panel session devoted to the assessment of course current data sets of inequality such as the WID we are grateful to the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality and the Journal of Economic Inequality for organizing this panel at our conference thank you Nora Lustig for taking the lead and thank you Andrea Brandolini, Francois Bourguignon, Stephen Jenkins and Marco Gianti for contributing another special topic we will address is the experiences from two of the Brits the first one and the last one, Brazil and South Africa both have experienced some of the world's most challenging conditions of inequality in South Africa progress on combating inequality is yet to materialize in a significant way we have two special sessions devoted to the South African case organized with the help of Professor Murray Labrant from the University of Cape Town in contrast Brazil has been able to reduce inequality substantially in recent years we are therefore grateful that the opening keynote will be given by Minister Marcelo Cortes-Neri from Brazil may also draw attention to a new OUP book in the series of wider studies in development economics it is entitled Falling Inequality in Latin America Policy Changes and Lessons it was edited on behalf of wider by Professor Andrea Cornier finally our closing panel will include Tariah Hallen and President of Finland from 2000-2012 Joel Netschitänze, a member of the ANC National Executive Committee from South Africa Dr. Annika Sundein from Sweden new Chief Economist of CEDA and Professor James Foster one of the worst leading inequality researchers in addition to being an incredibly nice guy before I proceed to introduce Marcelo let me mention that I will come back after the keynote and our discussion with some housekeeping matters that I just have to give you once again a warm welcome to you all and now to today's keynote Excellency Marcelo Cortes-Neri it is a great pleasure to welcome you as our opening keynote speaker Marcelo Neri holds a PhD in economics from Princeton University and he's also the founder of the Center for Social Policies at the Gehulia Vargas Foundation which promotes policy oriented applied research in the fields of macroeconomics and social development Minister Neri works actively with public policies and has created a system of state minimum wages and conditional cash transfer programs in Brazil he previously had the position of Secretary General of the Council of Economic and Social Development and was the President of the Institute of Applied Economic Research Minister Neri, the floor is yours and we welcome you