Thomas Piketty to Speak on Inequality and Capital at the Institute for Advanced Study

Thomas Piketty, Professor at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris (EHESS) and the École d’économie de Paris/Paris School of Economics, will give a public lecture, “Reflections on Inequality and Capital in the 21st Century,” on Friday, May 12, which will take place at 5:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus. This event is part of a new series of Lectures on Public Policy funded by an anonymous gift and curated by the School of Social Science that aim to address issues of broad import relevant to contemporary politics, social conditions, and scientific matters.

In this lecture, Piketty will present new findings and reflections on global inequality dynamics. In particular, he will stress the need to go beyond the Western-centered historical perspective on inequality

“Capital in the 21st Century is one of the most influential books written by an economist during the past decade,” said Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science. “It has been instrumental in the emergence of a public debate on inequality in the United States.”

Piketty has done significant historical and theoretical work on the interplay between economic development and the distribution of income and wealth. In particular, he is the initiator of the recent literature on the long-run evolution of top income shares in national income, which is now available in the World Wealth and Income Database, the source for global inequality data. These works have led to radically question the optimistic relationship between development and inequality posited by Nobel Laureate Simon Kuznets, and to emphasize the role of political, social, and fiscal institutions in the historical evolution of income and wealth distribution. Piketty is the author of numerous articles published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Explorations in Economic History, and of a dozen books. In 2013 he was granted the Yrjö Jahnsson Prize of the European Economic Association, awarded every other year to an under 45-year-old economist.

Piketty received his Ph.D. in economics from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the London School of Economics. Prior to his current role at the Paris School of Economics, Piketty has held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but registration is requested: https://www.ias.edu/events/piketty-publiclecture. For more information on other events at the Institute, visit www.ias.edu/events.