Tuesday, October 27, 2015

French Economist Thomas Piketty Talks Income Inequality at Stanford

Thomas Piketty lectured on his bestseller, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” last Friday in Memorial Auditorium on the campus of Stanford University, reports The Stanford Daily.

The lecture was part of a joint venture between the Stanford Economics Department and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, which hosted Piketty as part of their Kenneth Arrow lecture series.

Piketty is currently a professor at the Paris School of Economics. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics.

In his lecture, Piketty stated that wealth and income inequality is increasing in the United States while, at the same time, decreasing in Europe. Piketty held that this inequality is due to the rising inequality of labor income, citing that the minimum wage in the U.S. today is much lower than that of 1960 after adjusting for economic conditions, reports TSD.

“The rise in U.S. inequality is mostly due to rising inequality of labor income,” Piketty said.

Piketty proposed progressive taxation to remedy the United States’ wealth inequality.

For the weaknesses and errors in Piketty's view see Problems with Piketty: The Flaws and Fallacies in Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Mark Hendrickson.

In May, I interviewed Hendrickson,

 -RW

1 comment:

  1. Wish some would ask him where his extra income is being donated. He shouldn't be making more than average.

    ReplyDelete