Documents Piketty, Thomas 32 results

"Inequality has long been a defining feature of the global economy, but by 2025, it has reached levels that demand urgent attention. The benefits of globalization and economic growth have flowed disproportionately to a small minority, while much of the world's population still face difficulties in achieving stable livelihoods. These divides are not inevitable. They are the outcome of political and institutional choices. This report draws on the World Inequality Database and new research to provide a comprehensive picture of inequality across income, wealth, gender, international finance, climate responsibility, taxation, and politics. The findings are clear: inequality remains extreme and persistent; it manifests across multiple dimensions that intersect and reinforce one another; and it reshapes democracies, fragmenting coalitions and eroding political consensus. Yet the data also demonstrate that inequality can be reduced. Policies such as redistributive transfers, progressive taxation, investment in human capital, and stronger labor rights have made a difference in some contexts. Proposals such as minimum wealth taxes on multi-millionaires illustrate the scale of resources that could be mobilized to finance education, health, and climate adaptation. Reducing inequality is not only about fairness but also essential for the resilience of economies, the stability of democracies, and the viability of our planet."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"In this compelling dialogue, two of the world's most influential thinkers reflect on the value of equality and debate what citizens and governments should do to narrow the gaps that separate us. Ranging across economics, philosophy, history, and current affairs, Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel consider how far we have come in achieving greater equality. At the same time, they confront head-on the extreme divides that remain in wealth, income, power, and status nationally and globally.

What can be done at a time of deep political instability and environmental crisis? Piketty and Sandel agree on much: more inclusive investment in health and education, higher progressive taxation, curbing the political power of the rich and the overreach of markets. But how far and how fast can we push? Should we prioritize material or social change? What are the prospects for any change at all with nationalist forces resurgent? How should the left relate to values like patriotism and local solidarity where they collide with the challenges of mass migration and global climate change?

To see Piketty and Sandel grapple with these and other problems is to glimpse new possibilities for change and justice but also the stubborn truth that progress towards greater equality never comes quickly or without deep social conflict and political struggle."

"A recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the longrun for more than 20 countries using income tax statistics. Top incomes represent a small share of the population but a very significant share of total income and total taxes paid. Hence, aggregate economic growth per capita and Gini inequality indexes are sensitive to excluding or including top incomes. We discuss the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series, including income definition and comparability over time and across countries, tax avoidance and tax evasion. We provide a summary of the key empirical findings. Most countries experience a dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the 20th century in general due to shocks to top capital incomes during the wars and depression shocks. Top income shares do not recover in the immediate post war decades. However, over the last 30 years, top income shares have increased substantially in English speaking countries and in India and China but not in continental European countries or Japan. This increase is due in part to an unprecedented surge in top wage incomes. As a result, wage income comprises a larger fraction of top incomes than in the past. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and empirical models that have been proposed to account for the facts and the main questions that remain open."

"This paper reviews recent developments in the theory and practice of optimal capital taxation. We emphasize three main rationales for capital taxation. First, the frontier between capital and labour income flows is often fuzzy, thereby lending support to a broad-based, comprehensive income tax. Next, the very notions of income and consumption flows are difficult to define and measure for top wealth holders where capital gains due to asset price effects dwarf ordinary income and consumption flows. Therefore the proper way to tax billionaires is a progressive wealth tax. Finally, as individuals cannot choose their parents, there are strong meritocratic reasons why we should tax inherited wealth more than earned income or self-made wealth for which individuals can be held responsible, at least in part. This implies that the ideal fiscal system should also include a progressive inheritance tax, in addition to progressive income and wealth taxes. We then confront our prescriptions with historical experience. Although there are significant differences, we argue that observed fiscal systems in modern democracies bear important similarities with this ideal triptych."

"Comment contenir le déferlement de la vague populiste qui risque de balayer nos démocraties ? Comment prévenir l'éclatement de l'Union européenne ? Pour en finir avec des politiques économiques disqualifiées, mettre l'austérité en minorité et lutter contre les inégalités, il est urgent de démocratiser le gouvernement de la zone euro.

Rédigé par une équipe pluridisciplinaire de juristes, politistes et économistes, repris par Benoît Hamon, le projet de traité, ici présenté et commenté, institue une Assemblée parlementaire de la zone euro permettant de promouvoir la justice fiscale et sociale. Le traité peut être adopté en l'état par les pays qui s'y rallieront. Le texte est précédé d'une introduction qui expose sa mise en œuvre de façon pédagogique. L'objectif est que chaque citoyen s'empare du débat européen et que les différentes forces sociales et politiques contribuent à améliorer ce projet et à nous sortir de la sinistrose ambiante."

"What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.
Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again."

"La répartition des richesses est l'une des questions les plus vives et les plus débattues aujourd'hui. Mais que sait-on vraiment de son évolution sur le long terme ? La dynamique de l'accumulation du capital engendre-t-elle inévitablement sa concentration toujours plus forte entre quelques mains, comme l'a pensé Marx au XIXe siècle ? Ou bien les forces équilibrantes de la croissance, de la concurrence et du progrès technique conduisent-elles spontanément à une réduction des inégalités et à une harmonieuse stabilisation dans les phases avancées du développement, comme l'a cru Kuznets au XXe siècle ? Ce livre tente de répondre à ces questions à partir de données historiques et comparatives beaucoup plus étendues que toutes les études antérieures.

Parcourant trois siècles et plus de vingt pays, il offre une perspective inédite sur les tendances à l'oeuvre et un cadre théorique renouvelé pour en comprendre les mécanismes. Dès lors que le taux de rendement du capital dépasse durablement le taux de croissance de la production et du revenu - ce qui était le cas jusqu'au XIXe siècle, et risque fort de redevenir la norme au XXIe siècle -, alors le capitalisme produit mécaniquement des inégalités insoutenables, arbitraires, remettant radicalement en cause les valeurs méritocratiques sur lesquelles se fondent nos sociétés démocratiques. Des moyens existent pour inverser cette tendance, tout en repoussant les replis nationalistes ou totalitaires, mais la voie est étroite. "

"Longtemps, les nombreux chercheurs qui s'intéressent aux inégalités de revenus dans les pays développés ne disposaient pour leurs travaux que de bases de données parcellaires et sans aucune homogénéité. Un des objectifs du projet de recherche collectif conduit par les auteurs était de remédier à cette situation. C'est désormais chose faite avec la constitution d'une base de données de qualité - même si, en raison de la méthode utilisée pour sa réalisation, celle-ci n'est pas exempte de limites - qui concernant les concentrations de revenu et de patrimoine couvre le plus grand nombre possible de pays et d'années. Après une description rapide de cette nouvelle base de données, les auteurs présentent, ici, quelques-uns des résultats de leur recherche. Leur étude confirme entre autres que la réduction des inégalités est en grande partie la conséquence des chocs économiques violents subis par les détenteurs du capital au cours de la période 1914-1945 ou bien encore que les cadres dirigeants (working rich) ont progressivement remplacé les rentiers de l'entre-deux-guerres au sommet de la hiérarchie des revenus au XXe siècle."

"We divide decedents into two groups: “rentiers" (whose wealth is smaller than the capitalized value of their inherited wealth) and “savers” (who consumed less than their labor income). Applying this split to a unique micro data set on inheritance and matrimonial property regimes, we find that Paris from 1872 to 1927 was a “rentier society”. Rentiers made up about 10% of the population of Parisians but owned 70% of aggregate wealth. Rentier societies thrive when the rate of return on private wealth r is larger than the growth rate g (say, r = 4% vs g = 2%). This was the case in the 19th and early 20th centuries and is likely to happen again in the 21st century. At the time, top successors' capital income sustains living standards far beyond what labor income alone would permit."