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Spotlight On Piketty

Thomas Piketty appeared centre stage for Intelligence Squared, along with a panel of experts to debate the themes discussed in his book 'Capital in the 21st Century', the surprise publishing sensation of 2014.

Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century was the publishing sensation of 2014. An analysis of the causes and growth of inequality, it has sold nearly half a million copies worldwide. It was described by many reviewers as the economic book not just of the year, but of recent decades.

How is it that a young, largely unknown French economist stirred up such a massive worldwide debate on inequality, a topic that Nobel Prize-winning economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have been writing about for most of their careers? The answer lies in Piketty’s main argument, backed up by his extensive research, which states that capital – whether invested in the stock market or property – will always grow faster than income. As a result, he argues, people who are already rich will carry on getting richer, while those who depend on income will never catch up. Piketty’s solution? A global redistribution of wealth that would give poorer earners some capital to invest.

In this rare appearance in London, Piketty appeared centre stage for Intelligence Squared, along with a panel of experts to debate his findings. Do the alleged inaccuracies found in Piketty’s historical data affect the premise of his book? Is he right to predict that inequality will continue to rise during the 21st century? Is the allegedly growing wealth gap a threat to democracy? And what should we make of his


Speakers

Speakers

Thomas Piketty

French economist and author of 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'


Director of Studies at L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Professor at the Paris School of Economics. He is the author of the critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

David Smith

Economics Editor of The Sunday Times


Economics Editor of The Sunday Times since 1989. He is the author of several books, including most recently The Age of Instability: The Global Financial Crisis and What Comes Next.

Martin Wolf

Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times and author The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism


Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times. He was a member of the UK's Vickers Commission on Banking, which reported in 2011. He holds an honorary doctorate at the London School of Economics and is an honorary Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.He is a member of the International Media Council of the World Economic Forum. In 2000, he was awarded the CBE for services to financial journalism and in 2019 won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Gerald Loeb Awards. His books include The Shifts and the Shocks; Why Globalization Works; and the upcoming The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism.
Chair

Stephanie Flanders

Head of Bloomberg Economics


BBC economics editor from 2008 to 2013. She presented numerous BBC television and radio programmes, including her own economics discussion show, ‘Stephanomics’, named after her influential blog. Having been chief market strategist for the UK and Europe for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, she is now head of Bloomberg Economics.