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The Economics of Inequality
Book

The Economics of Inequality

Belknap Press, 2015 plus...


Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Overview
  • Background

Recommendation

This early study of income inequality by economist Thomas Piketty still has a lot to offer to today’s economic policy debates. Unlike his later best-selling tomes, this is a relatively short, analytical primer on the basic concepts of income inequality, filtered through Piketty’s interplay of reasoning and empirical investigation and relayed in his solid and exacting style. Domestic inequality in developed countries has come into sharper focus since 1997, when this book was first published in French, and Piketty has been on the case ever since.

Take-Aways

  • Making inequality comparisons between countries is difficult.
  • Most of the rise in inequality is due to unequal labor income, not to a larger income share going to capital.
  • Unintended changes in labor markets can result from redistribution policies.

About the Authors

Thomas Piketty is a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the author of the best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital and Ideology.