The aim of the conference is to bring together current examples of innovative and important research on inequality from across the social sciences and to help chart a path forward for interdisciplinary research on inequality.
The conference will feature two keynote lectures, as well as a panel discussion.
Keynote 1: If not Government, then What? A Three-Part Typology of Redistributive Preferences
Thursday 18 September 2025, 9.30 - 10.30am. In-person event. CBG Auditorium, Centre Building.
Speaker: Leslie McCall, Stone Center, City University of New York
Economic inequality is rising or at high levels in many countries across the globe. This has prompted a large, interdisciplinary and international body of research on public demands for government redistribution through income taxes and transfers. It is typically assumed – but not explicitly tested – that any opposition to government redistribution reflects acceptance of inequality or an individualistic belief in the undeservingness of the poor. We test this assumption directly and add a largely unexamined third possibility (besides government redistribution and individual responsibility): that major institutions and actors in the market sphere should reduce inequality in labor earnings. We find substantial support for this third market responsibility option, especially in advanced market economies such as the United States and Switzerland, where support for government redistribution is comparatively low. In contrast, we find the least support across all countries for the idea that inequality levels are acceptable or mainly the responsibility of the poor.
Panel Discussion: New Directions in Inequality Research
Thursday 18 September 2025, 17.30 - 18.45pm. In-person event. CBG Auditorium, Centre Building.
Speakers: Facundo Alvaredo, Professorial Research Fellow, International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics; Steven Durlauf, Director, Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility, University of Chicago; Larry Kramer, President and Vice-Chancellor, London School of Economics; Anne Phillips, Emeritus Professor, Department of Government, London School of Economics
Chair: Armine Ishkanian, Executive Director, Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, London School of Economics
Keynote 2: Global inequality in historical and comparative perspective
Friday 19 September 2025, 3.30 - 4.30pm. In-person and online event. Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building
Speaker: Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics
In this lecture, Thomas Piketty will discuss recent trends in global inequality and analyze the historical movement toward equality and future prospects for more redistribution. He will present new research produced by the World Inequality Lab. This will include preliminary results from the Global Justice Project. Combining comparative historical data series from the World Inequality Database with global input-output tables, environmental accounts, labour force surveys and other sources, the Global Justice project explores what a just distribution of socio-economic and environmental resources could look like at the global level from 2025 to 2100 – both between and within countries – in a way that is compatible with planetary boundaries. The project partly builds on the analysis and proposals set out in Thomas Piketty’s Brief History of Equality, extending them into a broader and more comprehensive global framework.
The full programme will be published on this page soon.
Questions about the conference may be addressed to iii.anniversary@lse.ac.uk.