Contributor(s): Heiner Flassbeck, Professor Robert Wade | In the context of the ongoing fall-out from the global financial crisis, income distribution is back to the centre of economic analysis and policies. The Trade and Development Report 2012 explores the linkages between income distribution, growth and development. The still unresolved financial crisis and its negative effects on global economic growth make a new approach towards inequality all the more urgent. Heiner Flassbeck is the Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies at UNCTAD and has led the research team behind the annual Trade and Development Reportsince 2005 as well as policy initiatives by UNCTAD since the global crisis, especially on financialisation of the world economy and reform of the international monetary system. Robert Wade is Professor of Political Economy and Development in the Department of International Development at LSE. A New Zealander, educated Washington DC, New Zealand, Sussex University. Worked at Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 1972-95, World Bank, 1984-88, Princeton Woodrow Wilson School 1989/90, MIT Sloan School 1992, Brown University 1996-2000. Fellow of Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 1992/93, Russell Sage Foundation 1997/98, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin 2000/01. Fieldwork in Pitcairn Is., Italy, India, Korea, Taiwan. Research on World Bank 1995-continuing. Author of Irrigation and Politics in South Korea (1982), Village Republics: The Economic Conditions of Collective Action in India (1988, 1994), Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asia's Industrialization (1990, 2003). He won the American Political Science Association's award of Best Book in Political Economy, 1992. Established in 1964, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development promotes the development-friendly integration of developing countries into the world economy. UNCTAD has progressively evolved into an authoritative knowledge-based institution whose work aims to help shape current policy debates and thinking on development, with a particular focus on ensuring that domestic policies and international action are mutually supportive in bringing about sustainable development.