Thomas Piketty

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Lore & Background

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 but moved away from that position before he was born. A visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 made him a firm believer in capitalism, private property, and the market. He earned a scientific Baccalauréat, attended preparatory classes, and entered the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) at age 18, studying mathematics and economics. At 22, he earned his PhD for a thesis on wealth redistribution, written at LSE and EHESS under Roger Guesnerie, winning the French Economics Association's award for the best thesis of the year. At LSE, he met Daron Acemoglu, also a PhD student at the time. After his PhD, Piketty taught as an assistant professor at MIT from 1993 to 1995, then joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1995. In 2000, he became a professor at EHESS. He won the 2002 prize for the best young economist in France. In 2006, he became the first head of the Paris School of Economics, which he helped organize, but left after a few months to serve as an economic advisor to Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal during the 2007 French presidential election. He resumed teaching at EHESS and PSE in 2007. In 2013, he won the Yrjö Jahnsson Award. In January 2015, he rejected the French Legion of Honour, stating he did not think it was the government's role to decide who is honourable. In September 2015, he was appointed to the British Labour Party's Economic Advisory Committee, but resigned in June 2016 over concerns about the party's EU referendum campaign. In 2015, he was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society and joined LSE as Centennial Professor. In February 2017, he joined the Parti Socialiste's campaign team as an advisor to Benoît Hamon, handling EU matters and the Fiscal Stability Treaty.

Reader's Guide

Thomas Piketty's significance lies in his systematic, data-driven analysis of long-term economic inequality, using historical tax records to study wealth concentration among top earners. His research on high incomes in France led to the book *Les hauts revenus en France au XXe siècle* (2001), built from fiscal data spanning the 20th century. His 2013 book *Capital in the Twenty-First Century* relies on economic data going back 250 years to show that an ever-rising concentration of wealth is not self-correcting, and he proposes redistribution through a progressive global tax on wealth. 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 since the government began collecting data a century ago. Piketty's work on France shows that differences in earnings dropped sharply during the 20th century, mostly after World War II, due to a highly progressive income tax that upset estate accumulation. He argues that tax cuts since the late 1990s will help rebuild large fortunes of the rentier class, leading to patrimonial capitalism. His later works include *Capital and Ideology* (2019), focusing on income inequality in various societies in history, and *A Brief History of Equality* (2022), a shorter book about wealth redistribution for citizens. He is a columnist for left-leaning *Libération* and regularly writes op-eds for center-left *Le Monde*. In April 2012, he co-authored an open letter supporting François Hollande, later describing Hollande's tenure as 'hopeless'. Piketty also teaches post-graduate students at LSE in an interdisciplinary approach, involved in the new MSc degree in Inequalities and Social Science.

Did You Know?

• Piketty earned his PhD at age 22, winning the French Economics Association's award for the best thesis of the year.
• A visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 made him a firm believer in capitalism, private property, and the market.
• He rejected the French Legion of Honour in January 2015, stating it is not the government's role to decide who is honourable.
• He was appointed to the British Labour Party's Economic Advisory Committee in September 2015 but resigned in June 2016 over concerns about the EU referendum campaign.
• Piketty's study with Emmanuel Saez showed the top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the US total income in 2012, the highest level since data collection began a century ago.