Katharina is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Northeastern University and a Visiting Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute (III).
Her research focuses on perceptions of income and wealth inequality, the temporal aspects of wealth, conceptualizations of richness, and geographic mobility and social mobility into higher managerial and professional occupations. Her doctoral research focused on perceptions of top incomes and wealth.
Previously Katharina held fellowships at the 'Politics of Inequality’ cluster at the University of Konstanz, Germany and at the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her PhD in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Her work has been published in the Socio-Economic Review, Sociology, Journal of Social Policy, Social Policy & Administration, among other journals, and has featured in The Guardian, Financial Times, The New Statesman and the BBC.
Research interests
Her research relates to perceptions of income and wealth inequality, particularly at the top of the distributions, the temporal aspects of wealth, conceptualisations of richness, and geographical mobility and social mobility into high-status occupations. Her doctoral research focused on perceptions of top incomes and wealth.
Publications
Hecht, K. and McArthur D (2022) Moving on up? How Social Origins Shape Geographic Mobility within Britain’s Higher Managerial and Professional Occupations. Sociology [link]
Hecht, K., Burchardt, T. and Davis, A. (2022) Richness, Insecurity and the Welfare State. Journal of Social Policy: 1–22. [link]
Summers, K., Accominotti, F., Burchardt. T., et al. (2022) Deliberating Inequality: A Blueprint for Studying the Social Formation of Beliefs about Economic Inequality. Social Justice Research. [link]
Hecht, K. (2021) ‘It’s the value that we bring’. Performance pay and top income earners’ perceptions of inequality. Socio-Economic Review [link]
Hecht, K. and Summers, K. (2021) The long and short of it: The temporal significance of wealth and income. Social Policy & Administration 55(4): 732–746. [link]
Savage M, Hecht, K., Hjellbrekke, J. et al. (2018) The anatomy of the British economic “elite.” In: Korsnes O, Heilbron J, Hjellbrekke J, et al. (eds.) New Directions in Elite Studies. London: Routledge. [link]
Hecht, K. (2017) A Relational Analysis of Top Incomes and Wealth: Economic Evaluation, Relative (Dis)advantage and the Service to Capital. International Inequalities Institute Working Paper 11. London: The London School of Economics and Political Science. [link]
Reports
Davis, A., Hecht, K., Burchardt, T., Gough, I., Hirsch, D., Rowlingson, K. and Summers, K. (2020) Can Public Consensus Identify a ‘Riches Line’: A Pilot Study, London, Trust for London. [link]
Hecht, K., McArthur, D., Savage, M. and Friedman, S. (2020) Elites in the UK: Pulling Away? Social Mobility, Geographic Mobility and Elite Occupations, London, Sutton Trust. [link]