Photo by stevepb @ pixabay.com

The International Monetary Fund, an organization of 189 countries focusing such issues as global monetary cooperation, financial stability, sustainable economic growth and reducing poverty, has developed a microsite for resources on the subject of inclusion and economic inequality (http://inequality.elibrary.imf.org/).

The website brings together books, original research, statistical data, and more in a searchable interface.  Browse the whole collection or limit by region using an interactive map filter and/or series or author.

Topics in the Inclusion and Economic Inequality IMF site include:

• Poverty and Homelessness
• Social Public Policy
• Economic Development
• Significant works to date include*:

Gender Inequality Index – An index for measurement of gender disparity that was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Use the interactive map to limit by region and/or date.

Inequality in Fiscal Policy – The book delves into this discussion by analyzing fiscal policy and its link with inequality. Fiscal policy is the government’s most powerful tool for addressing inequality. It affects households ‘consumption directly (through taxes and transfers) and indirectly (via incentives for work and production and the provision of public goods and individual services such as education and health). An important message of the book is that growth and equity are not necessarily at odds; with the appropriate mix of policy instruments and careful policy design, countries can in many cases achieve better distributional outcomes and improve economic efficiency.

Financial Development, Inequality, and Poverty: Some International Evidence – This paper provides evidence on the link between financial development and income distribution. Several dimensions of financial development are considered: financial access, efficiency, stability, and liberalization.

To investigate more IMF resources from UBC Library, go to IMF eLibrary and IMF eLibrary Data.

For research help using the IMF sources or for general research support, call us at (604) 822-2725, email hssd.library@ubc.ca, or drop by Koerner Library Research Help Desk.

* Inclusion and Economic Inequality IMF site

OpenStreetMap Mapathon

Koerner Library
Room 217 GIS lab
Wednesday November 15th
3:30 – 4:30 PM

No registration necessary

Celebrate GIS day with an OpenStreetMap mapathon!

In this workshop you’ll learn how to add data to OpenStreetMap. You’ll add geographic information that will be free to for anyone to use and share, from humanitarian uses to smartphone apps.

The workshop will focus on adding building footprints to Masset, BC on Haida Gwaii.

You’ll learn how to:

• Create an OpenStreetMap account
• Edit point, lines and polygons
• Add information about your additions

Your help will make this area better.

Why building footprints?

From “OSMGeoWeek mapathons support Building Canada 2020“:

“Building footprints and wheelchair attribute data are used to assess the city’s accessibility. Building data can be merged with property assessment data to visualize property assessment values, or it can be merged with zoning data to visualize allowed versus actual buildings heights.”

This OpenStreetMap Building Canada initiative has a vision of mapping all buildings in Canada by 2020. You can be a part of that.

Pizza will be provided.

Koerner Library has new software available! The computer labs in Koerner Library – rooms 217 & 218A – have been upgraded with new GIS and statistical analysis software. The existing software has been updated to the latest versions and new tools are now available.

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

• Expanded tools for qualitative and quantitative data analysis (NVivo, SAS)
• Enhanced urban planning capability (Esri CityEngine)
• New GIS capabilities (ArcGIS Pro)
• Engineering, planning and design software (Matlab, AutoCAD and Sketchup Pro)

For a full list, see the UBC Library Research Commons: Rooms & Software page.