PARIS – A group of economists has proposed a radical overhaul of the global financial architecture, calling for the replacement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with a United Nations-run central bank to facilitate a planetary-scale redistribution of wealth.
The proposal, detailed in the Global Justice Report published by Lucas Chancel and 44 co-authors at the Paris-based World Inequality Lab, suggests that current international institutions are incapable of addressing the accelerating divergence between the world’s wealthiest individuals and the systemic collapse of ecological boundaries.
The report arrives at a critical juncture for global governance. Since 2020, global poverty reduction has stalled or reversed, while wealth concentration has reached historic peaks. Simultaneously, the Earth has overshot several “safe and just” planetary boundaries-including climate regulation and biodiversity-increasing the vulnerability of low-income nations that contributed least to the crisis.
A New Financial Architecture
The Global Justice Report outlines a structural shift away from the Bretton Woods system established in 1944, which anchored global finance to the U.S. dollar and granted the United States significant influence over the IMF. That postwar framework was later formalized in the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, which still govern how member states contribute reserves, receive loans, and vote on key decisions today via a quota-based system that heavily weights advanced economies.
To replace this framework, the authors propose the creation of a new international reserve currency and a UN-led central bank operating under the umbrella of the UN Charter. This institutional pivot would be supported by two primary financial mechanisms:
- The Global Justice Fund: A body designed to collect global taxes, primarily targeting individuals with fortunes exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars. These funds would be redistributed as country dividends on an equal per-capita basis, with governments expected to channel the proceeds into health systems, public education, and climate resilience infrastructure.
- The World Sovereign Fund: An investment vehicle whose returns would provide a sustainable funding stream for the aforementioned dividends, functioning similarly to a pooled global sovereign wealth fund but with an explicit mandate to reduce inequality and finance climate action.
The report’s modeling suggests that if these measures were implemented, the world could achieve a per-capita income of approximately €5,000 (US$5,700) per month by 2100, while simultaneously reducing working hours and limiting global warming to 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels. Those projections assume coordinated policy adoption by major economies, large-scale wealth taxation, and a rapid shift of capital away from fossil fuels.
“Ambitious. Utopian. Wacky.”
These descriptors have characterized the early reception of the report, as it directly challenges the economic orthodoxy that links prosperity exclusively to GDP growth and suggests that a certain level of inequality is a necessary catalyst for development. For policy makers, the proposal raises immediate questions about fiscal sovereignty, capital flight, and how a UN-run central bank would coexist with existing bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, and national monetary authorities.
The Funding Gap in the Global South
The urgency of the report’s prescriptions is underscored by the widening financial chasm between the Global North and South. Low- and middle-income nations-excluding China-are projected to require more than $1 trillion annually by 2030 to fund greenhouse gas emission reductions and adapt to extreme weather events. Much of that investment would have to flow through public budgets, development banks, and regulated capital markets, and cannot be met solely through private finance.
Despite promises made at various COP summits regarding “Loss and Damage” funding, these nations have struggled to secure even a fraction of the necessary capital. Existing instruments-such as IMF programs, climate funds, and concessional loans-remain fragmented, slow to disburse and, in many cases, add to already unsustainable debt burdens.
The report argues that the current system of voluntary contributions and loans is insufficient. It posits that a mandatory global tax regime is the only viable path to meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which remain largely off-track according to the latest UN reports. A rules-based system of globally coordinated taxation, the authors contend, would give governments in the Global South more predictable revenue and reduce their dependence on ad hoc pledges and crisis-driven bailouts.
Toward an ‘IPCC for Inequality’
Parallel to the World Inequality Lab’s proposal, a broader institutional movement is gaining traction within the G20. Under South Africa’s recent presidency, data revealed that between 2000 and 2024, the richest 1% of the global population captured 41% of all newly created wealth. That concentration, negotiators warn, risks undermining social cohesion and complicating already fraught multilateral talks on trade, climate, and migration.
In response, a group of researchers led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has recommended the establishment of an international panel on inequality. This body would mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by synthesizing global research to provide policymakers with a shared, evidence-based understanding of wealth disparity and its implications for taxation, labor markets, and social protection systems. According to draft concept notes discussed within UN circles, the panel’s assessments would be designed to inform, but not dictate, national policy choices-much as IPCC reports underpin, but do not replace, state-led climate negotiations.
The proposed inequality panel is expected to receive formal authorization from the United Nations in September. Imraan Valodia, an economist at the University of the Witwatersrand and a member of the panel’s founding committee, stated that the group will investigate the root causes and systemic consequences of inequality using a diverse array of international research perspectives. Early work is expected to focus on cross-border tax evasion, profit shifting, and the distributional impacts of climate policy.
The Global Justice Report authors acknowledge that their roadmap faces immense political hurdles, particularly from the wealthiest nations and corporations likely to resist new global tax powers. However, their models suggest the framework could still achieve its primary objectives even if the United States chooses not to participate, provided a critical mass of large economies in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America align on common rules.
For diplomats and finance ministers preparing for the next cycle of IMF and World Bank meetings, the report functions less as a detailed blueprint than as a provocation to reconsider who sets the rules of the global economy-and in whose interest. The United Nations is expected to review the proposal for the international inequality panel during its September sessions, alongside ongoing debates over SDG financing and potential reforms to the Bretton Woods institutions.