Professor Bardhan's lecture, "A Global Agenda for Labour" will address a vital and urgent political-economic issue. In the face of rising inequality and right-wing populism -the twin menace facing much of the world today - how to cope with the formidable challenge of restoring the countervailing power of labour, keeping in mind both rich and poor countries?

The talk will suggest some tentative steps in terms of international economic policy, policies of social protection against job precariousness, internal organization of labour unions and of corporate governance, and finally, and most importantly, in terms of the issues arising out of the growing cultural distance between blue-collar workers and the footloose cosmopolitan professional liberal elite that dominates the opinion-making circles in many social-democratic parties.

Pranab Bardhan is Professor of Graduate School at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also author of 14 books, mostly on political economy of development and globalization; was BP Centennial Professor at LSE in 2010-11

Jean-Paul Faguet (@jpfaguet) is Professor of the Political Economy of Development at the London School of Economics, and Programme Director of the MSc in Development Management. He is also Chair of the Decentralization Task Force at Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue. He works at the frontier between economics and political science, using quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the institutions and organizational forms that underpin development transformations. 

The Department of International Development promotes interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. 

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEAgendaLabour