Thomas Picketty
Thomas Piketty is Professor of Economics and Economic History at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and the Paris School of Economics, and co-director of the World Inequality Lab and the World Inequality Database. His research lies at the intersection of historical political economy and socio-economic history, examining the relationships between economic development, the distribution of income and wealth, and political conflict.
Piketty is the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Capital and Ideology, A Brief History of Equality and, most recently, A History of Political Conflict, co-written with Julia Cagé. Across this work, he has challenged the idea that inequality is simply an inevitable consequence of economic forces, demonstrating instead how political, social and fiscal institutions shape the distribution of wealth and opportunity.
His work asks fundamental questions about the kind of societies we choose to build: how wealth should be distributed, what equality means in practice, and how democratic institutions can respond to profound economic and social divisions. His recent research also considers the relationship between global convergence, prosperity and planetary limits.
Piketty is one of the world's most influential scholars of inequality and a leading contributor to contemporary debates about economic democracy, redistribution and the possibilities for creating more equal societies.
