Thomas Piketty

Besides these surveys, which make up the core of his work, Piketty has published in other areas, often with a connection to economic inequalities. His work on schools, for example, postulates that disparities among different schools, especially class sizes, are a cause for the persistence of inequalities in wages and the economy. He has also published proposals for changes in the French pension system and the French tax system. In a 2018 paper, Piketty suggested that throughout the Western world, political parties of both the left and the right have been captured by the "elites". Piketty's latest book, Capital and ideologie, argues it is necessary to examine the ideological systems which attempted to justify the forms of inequality specific to different institutional configurations. This work was well received in France, but some critics considered Piketty's work too superficial. In particular, Nicholas Brisset criticized his definitions and analyses of "ideology" and "capitalism" for being too weak.

On 11 February 2017, it was announced that he had joined the socialist Benoît Hamon's campaign team in the latter's presidential run. He took in charge of EU matters, and more precisely, the Fiscal Stability Treaty (or TSCG), while Julia Cagé was responsible for the candidate's economic and fiscal platform. Piketty expressed his view that the TSCG should be renegotiated in order to introduce a euro zone assembly, composed of members of EU's parliaments — a "democratic government", he said, in comparison with the current system which he views as a "huis clos" (a "private, closed door discussion", an in camera arrangement). Such change would currently require a unanimous approval of all EU members, and Piketty has suggested that a change of rules might be necessary, saying that if countries representing 80% of EU's population or GDP ratify a treaty, it should be approved. He is also in favour of a "credible and bold basic income", which is one of Benoit Hamon's key proposals, although their views on the matter are different. The call in which Piketty and other economic researchers argue for their version of the basic income has been criticised as not "universal", a criticism he answered on his blog.

In January 2015, he rejected the French Legion of Honour order, stating that he refused the nomination because he did not think it was the government's role to decide who is honourable.

On 27 September 2015, it was announced that he had been appointed to the British Labour Party's Economic Advisory Committee, convened by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and reporting to Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn. The appointment of Piketty, who had previously advised Lord Wood, key policy advisor to former Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband, that tax rates could be raised above 50% for earnings over one million pounds without it impacting the economy, was seen as a particular coup for the Labour Party leadership due to his breakthrough success in the mainstream publishing world. Regarding this appointment he stated that he was very happy to take part and assist the Labour Party in constructing an economic policy that helps tackle some of the biggest issues facing people in the UK and that there was a brilliant opportunity for the Labour party to construct a fresh and new political economy which will expose austerity for the failure it has been in the UK and Europe, although he reportedly failed to attend the first meeting. In June 2016, he resigned from his role in Labour's Economic Advisory Committee, citing concerns over the weak campaign the party had run in the EU referendum.

On 2 October 2015 Piketty received an honorary doctorate from the University of Johannesburg and on 3 October 2015 he delivered the 13th Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture at the University of Johannesburg.

Thomas Piketty joined the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2015 as the distinguished Centennial Professor. Piketty continues his research as part of the LSE International Inequalities Institute. His economic research focusses mainly on wealth inequalities and the use of capital in the 21st century. Piketty has long-standing ties to the London School of Economics and he completed his PhD studies at the university in the early 1990s.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century, published in 2013, focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the US since the 18th century. The book's central thesis is that inequality is not an accident but rather a feature of capitalism that can be reversed only through state intervention. The book thus argues that unless capitalism is reformed, the very democratic order will be threatened. The book reached number one on The New York Times bestselling hardcover nonfiction list from 18 May 2014. Piketty offered a "possible remedy: a global tax on wealth".

In 2014, he was awarded the British Academy Medal for this book.

Piketty is the author of the best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), which emphasises the themes of his work on wealth concentrations and distribution over the past 250 years. The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future. To address this problem Piketty proposes redistribution through a progressive global tax on wealth. In 2020, his book Capital and Ideology was published, which focuses on income inequality in various societies in history.

In 2013, Piketty won the biennial Yrjö Jahnsson Award, for the economist under age 45 who has "made a contribution in theoretical and applied research that is significant to the study of economics in Europe."

In April 2012, Piketty co-authored along with 42 colleagues an open letter in support of then socialist party candidate for the French presidency François Hollande. Hollande won the contest against the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in May of that year. Piketty was unimpressed by Hollande's tenure, later describing him as "hopeless".

Thomas Piketty was the partner of the politician Aurélie Filippetti. In 2009, she sued him for domestic violence. Thomas Piketty acknowledged the complaint and apologized, following which Aurélie Filipetti withdrew her complaint.

In 2006, Piketty became the first head of the Paris School of Economics, which he helped set up. He left after a few months to serve as an economic advisor to Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal during the French presidential campaign. Piketty resumed teaching at the EHESS and Paris School of Economics in 2007.

Piketty won the 2002 prize for the best young economist in France, and according to a list dated 11 November 2003, he is a member of the scientific orientation board of the association À gauche, en Europe, founded by Michel Rocard and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

A research project on high incomes in France led to the book Les hauts revenus en France au XXe siècle (High incomes in France in the 20th Century, Grasset, 2001), which was based on a survey of statistical series covering the whole of the 20th century, built from data from the fiscal services (particularly income tax declarations). He extended this analysis in his immensely popular book Le Capital au XXIe siècle (Capital in the Twenty-First Century). A study by Emmanuel Saez and Piketty showed that the top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the country's total income in 2012, the highest level recorded since the government began collecting the relevant data a century ago.

After earning his PhD, Piketty taught from 1993 to 1995 as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1995, he joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a researcher, and in 2000 he became a professor (directeur d'études) at EHESS.

The normative conclusion Piketty draws is that a tax cut and thus a decrease in the financial contribution to society of the wealthy that has been happening in France since the late 1990s will assist in the rebuilding of the earlier large fortunes of the rentier class. This trend will lead to the rise of what he calls patrimonial capitalism, in which a few families control most of the wealth.

Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔ.ma pi.kɛ.ti] ; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist whose work focuses on wealth and income inequality. He is a professor (directeur d'études) at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), associate chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial professor at the International Inequalities Institute, which is part of the London School of Economics (LSE).

Piketty was born in the Parisian suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine. His parents had been involved with a Trotskyist group and the May 1968 protests in Paris, but they had moved away from this political position before Piketty was born, and a visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 was enough to make him a firm "believe[r] in capitalism, private property, the market".

Piketty's work has been discussed as a critical continuation of the pioneering work of Simon Kuznets in the 1950s. According to Kuznets, the long-term evolution of earnings inequalities was shaped as a curve (Kuznets curve). Growth started at the beginning of the industrial revolution, and slackened off later due to the reallocation of the labor force from low productivity sectors like agriculture to higher productivity sectors like industry.

According to Piketty, the tendency observed by Kuznets in the early 1950s is not necessarily a product of deep economic forces (e.g. sectoral spillover or the effects of technological progress). Instead, estate values, rather than wage inequalities, decreased, and they did so for reasons that were not specifically economic (for example, the creation of income tax). Consequently, the decrease would not necessarily continue, and in fact, inequalities have grown sharply in the United States over the last thirty years, returning to their 1930s level.