For many years inequality in income and wealth received little attention in public debate and was only a minority interest in the economics profession. GDP per capita was widely considered to be a satisfactory indicator of economic prosperity. Yet, inequality has now become the focus of remarkably wide-ranging attention, from Davos and the State of the Union address to academic journals across a variety of disciplines. Thought-provoking research by Tony Atkinson and Thomas Piketty on an increased concentration at the very top of the income and wealth distribution over the last century has played a major role in moving inequality towards the centre of political and academic debate. As the chart below shows the rapid rise of top income inequality in the English speaking countries “and the more modest rise in continental Europe and Japan” from about 1980, in sharp contrast to the decline seen over the previous 40 years. These trends bring to the fore the question how inequality can be addressed, and a set of concrete proposals aimed at doing so is put forward in Tony Atkinson’s new book.
