UE857 - Inequality

• 48 bd Jourdan
  48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris
  1er semestre / hebdomadaire, mardi 13:00-16:00
  du 8 septembre 2020 au 24 novembre 2020

Dernière modification : 31 mai 2020 08:41

Type d'UE

Séminaires DE/MC

Disciplines

Économie

Page web

-

Langues

anglais

Mots-clés

Économie politique Inégalités Patrimoine

Aires culturelles

-

Le programme détaillé n'est pas disponible.

• Séminaires de recherche – Migrations – M2/S3
  Suivi et validation – semestriel hebdomadaire = 3 ECTS
  MCC – examen
• Séminaires de recherche – Politiques publiques et développement – M2/S3
  Suivi et validation – semestriel hebdomadaire = 3 ECTS
  MCC – examen

Contacts additionnels

master-ppd@psemail.eu

Informations pratiques

(Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris). Septembre-Décembre 2020 ; dates et horaires communiqués ultérieurement sur le site du Master PPD.

Le syllabus du cours sera disponible sur le site suivant/The course syllabus will be available from the website below: 

https://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/fr/formations/masters/ppd-politiques-publiques-et-developpement/

UE de 24 h = 3 ECTS.

Lectures in English / Cours en français.

Direction de travaux des étudiants

possible.

Réception des candidats

-

Pré-requis

admission in the respective master.

We see inequalities, we measure them, we describe increasing top income and wealth shares. But we cannot properly interpret and understand what we observe without a general theory that develops the concepts of commodity, money, capital, power, and history. There is a broad agreement that there should be more taxation and redistribution, but we lack a serious discussion about why we expect this to come from the “state”, or why we stick to the illusion of the “state” as the sphere of common good that can and should tame capital and foster development through properly evaluated parliament-decided public policies. It is usually expected that redistribution will take place within a democratic framework with strict regard for due process of law. But this preconception takes for granted something that has not yet been established : the compatibility between democracy and the continuing developments of capitalism.

The social sciences in general, and Economics in particular, have abandoned the quest and the responsibility to produce and think in terms of a general theory. We challenge this view and argue that, if we want to fulfill our duty to understand social phenomena, it is necessary to reclaim the primacy of general theories : a conceptual framework that conceives the system – its subject matter – as an internally differentiated whole, where the interaction of its constituting elements is articulated according to general laws. It is only on the basis of general theories that we will be able to understand history (as a self-transforming, cumulative, and irreversible process, specific to human society), and, most importantly, apprehend the challenges of contemporary capitalism, including our particular focus of concern : socioeconomic inequalities. We propose that only the continuation of the living yet dormant Political Economy project offers the keys to comprehend the challenges of our historical present, where the main conflict is not “who owns how much” but “who plans whom”, and where the differentiation of capital explains the observed social differentiations (of labor, social classes, nation states, currencies, wealth, incomes).
Through active discussions, the course should allow students to gain new insights on current concerns such as poverty, inequality, environmental crisis, nationalism, underdevelopment, social conflict.

Publications

• Avec Anthony B. Atkinson, « Top Incomes in South Africa in the Twentieth Century », Cliometrica, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-021-00235-4
• Avec Denis Cogneau et Thomas Piketty, « Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, and Vietnam, and comparison with the British Empire 1920-1960 », Journal of Development Economics, 2021, 152. Previous version published as CEPR Discussion Paper 14969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102680
• Avec L. Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez et Gabriel Zucman, « Towards a System of Distributional National Accounts », Économie et Statistique/Economics and Statistics, 517-518-519, 2020, p. 41-59. https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2020.517t.2018
• Avec Paolo Acciari et Salvatore Morelli, « The concentration of personal wealth in Italy 1995-2016 », CEPR Discussion Paper 16053, 2021. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=16053
• Avec A.-B. Atkinson, T. Blanchet, L. Chancel, L. Bauluz, M. Fisher-Post, I. Flores, B. Garbinti, J. Goupille-Lebret, C. Martinez-Toledano, M. Morgan, T. Neef, T. Piketty, A-S. Robilliard, E. Saez, L. Yang et G. Zucman, « Distributional National Accounts (DINA) Guidelines 2020 : Concepts and Methods used in the World Inequality Database », WID.world Working Paper, 2020. https://www.dropbox.com/s/kgsad4ok148o3gd/Alvaredo-et-al-DINAGuidelines-2020.pdf?dl=0

• Séminaires de recherche – Migrations – M2/S3
  Suivi et validation – semestriel hebdomadaire = 3 ECTS
  MCC – examen
• Séminaires de recherche – Politiques publiques et développement – M2/S3
  Suivi et validation – semestriel hebdomadaire = 3 ECTS
  MCC – examen

Contacts additionnels

master-ppd@psemail.eu

Informations pratiques

(Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris). Septembre-Décembre 2020 ; dates et horaires communiqués ultérieurement sur le site du Master PPD.

Le syllabus du cours sera disponible sur le site suivant/The course syllabus will be available from the website below: 

https://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/fr/formations/masters/ppd-politiques-publiques-et-developpement/

UE de 24 h = 3 ECTS.

Lectures in English / Cours en français.

Direction de travaux des étudiants

possible.

Réception des candidats

-

Pré-requis

admission in the respective master.

• 48 bd Jourdan
  48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris
  1er semestre / hebdomadaire, mardi 13:00-16:00
  du 8 septembre 2020 au 24 novembre 2020

We see inequalities, we measure them, we describe increasing top income and wealth shares. But we cannot properly interpret and understand what we observe without a general theory that develops the concepts of commodity, money, capital, power, and history. There is a broad agreement that there should be more taxation and redistribution, but we lack a serious discussion about why we expect this to come from the “state”, or why we stick to the illusion of the “state” as the sphere of common good that can and should tame capital and foster development through properly evaluated parliament-decided public policies. It is usually expected that redistribution will take place within a democratic framework with strict regard for due process of law. But this preconception takes for granted something that has not yet been established : the compatibility between democracy and the continuing developments of capitalism.

The social sciences in general, and Economics in particular, have abandoned the quest and the responsibility to produce and think in terms of a general theory. We challenge this view and argue that, if we want to fulfill our duty to understand social phenomena, it is necessary to reclaim the primacy of general theories : a conceptual framework that conceives the system – its subject matter – as an internally differentiated whole, where the interaction of its constituting elements is articulated according to general laws. It is only on the basis of general theories that we will be able to understand history (as a self-transforming, cumulative, and irreversible process, specific to human society), and, most importantly, apprehend the challenges of contemporary capitalism, including our particular focus of concern : socioeconomic inequalities. We propose that only the continuation of the living yet dormant Political Economy project offers the keys to comprehend the challenges of our historical present, where the main conflict is not “who owns how much” but “who plans whom”, and where the differentiation of capital explains the observed social differentiations (of labor, social classes, nation states, currencies, wealth, incomes).
Through active discussions, the course should allow students to gain new insights on current concerns such as poverty, inequality, environmental crisis, nationalism, underdevelopment, social conflict.

Publications

• Avec Anthony B. Atkinson, « Top Incomes in South Africa in the Twentieth Century », Cliometrica, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-021-00235-4
• Avec Denis Cogneau et Thomas Piketty, « Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, and Vietnam, and comparison with the British Empire 1920-1960 », Journal of Development Economics, 2021, 152. Previous version published as CEPR Discussion Paper 14969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102680
• Avec L. Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez et Gabriel Zucman, « Towards a System of Distributional National Accounts », Économie et Statistique/Economics and Statistics, 517-518-519, 2020, p. 41-59. https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2020.517t.2018
• Avec Paolo Acciari et Salvatore Morelli, « The concentration of personal wealth in Italy 1995-2016 », CEPR Discussion Paper 16053, 2021. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=16053
• Avec A.-B. Atkinson, T. Blanchet, L. Chancel, L. Bauluz, M. Fisher-Post, I. Flores, B. Garbinti, J. Goupille-Lebret, C. Martinez-Toledano, M. Morgan, T. Neef, T. Piketty, A-S. Robilliard, E. Saez, L. Yang et G. Zucman, « Distributional National Accounts (DINA) Guidelines 2020 : Concepts and Methods used in the World Inequality Database », WID.world Working Paper, 2020. https://www.dropbox.com/s/kgsad4ok148o3gd/Alvaredo-et-al-DINAGuidelines-2020.pdf?dl=0