Thomas Piketty

His economic research focusses mainly on wealth inequalities and the use of capital in the 21st century.

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.

Thomas Piketty (born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is a professor of economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, associate chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.

Piketty's work focuses on public economics, in particular income and wealth inequality.

A visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 was enough to make him a firm "believe[r] in capitalism, private property and the market".

Piketty earned a C-stream (scientific) Baccalauréat, and after taking scientific preparatory classes, he entered the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) at the age of 18 where he studied mathematics and economics.

At the age of 22, Piketty was awarded his PhD for a thesis on wealth redistribution, which he wrote at the London School of Economics (LSE) and EHESS under Roger Guesnerie and winning the French Economics Association's award for the best thesis of the year.

He also met Daron Acemoglu for the first time at the LSE, who was also a PhD student at the time.

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.

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.

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.

He is a columnist for French center-left-leaning newspaper Libération and regularly writes op-eds for left-leaning newspaper Le Monde.

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".

He 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.

Piketty proposes improving the education systems and considers diffusion of knowledge, diffusion of skills, diffusion of idea of productivity as the main mechanism that will lead to lower inequality.

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 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.

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.

In 2015, Piketty was also elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society.

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.

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 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 eurozone 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 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 2019, his book Capital and Ideology was published, which focuses on income inequality in various societies in history.

His 2022 A Brief History of Equality is a much shorter book about wealth redistribution intended for a target audience of citizens instead of economists.

Piketty was born in the Parisian suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine.