Conferences, workshops and seminars

Upcoming conferences, workshops and seminars

Beyond the Divide: Early-Career Conference on Political Dimensions of Urban and Rural Life
Co-hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Department of Government
23– 24 April 2026
We invite submissions for the Early-Career Conference on the Political Dimensions of Urban and Rural Life co-hosted by the LSE International Inequalities Institute and the LSE Department of Government. This conference is designed to support the development of early-career scholars (PhD students, post docs and assistant professors) working in political science, geography, sociology, urban studies, economics, and other related fields. The conference welcomes research examining urban politics, rural politics, or comparative analyses between contexts.
Please complete the submission form by Friday 13 February 2026. Notifications of acceptance will be sent in early March 2026. Draft papers are due by 6 April 2026 for pre-circulation.
Complete the submission form
12 facts about poverty and homelessness in the U.S.

Tuesday 28 April 2026, 12.30 to 1.30pm. In-person and online seminar. LSE Centre Building 2.03.
Speaker:
Professor Bruce D. Meyer, McCormick Foundation Professor, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
Register to attend online
Register to attend in-person
World Inequality Conference
Co-sponsored by the International Inequalities Institute
Thursday 4 June - Saturday 6 June 2026. Paris School of Economics.
The International Inequalities Institute is supporting the the third edition of the World Inequality Conference, organised by the World Inequality Lab. The conference will be structured around three pillars:
1. Release of the Global Justice Report: The report will explore what a just distribution of socioeconomic and environmental resources could look like at the global level from 2026 to 2100 – both between and within countries – in a way that is compatible with planetary boundaries.
2. Keynote Sessions: Speakers will include academics, policymakers and writers.3
3. Paper Presentations: Accepted submissions will be organized into parallel theme-wise sessions.
Please note that the call for papers is now closed and won't be accepting any further submissions.
General public registration opens on 15 April 2026 and closes on 15 May 2026.

Previous conferences, workshops and seminars

Climate Inequalities Mini-Conference

19 March 2026

The Economics of Environmental Inequality programme co-hosted the second Economics of Environment and Energy mini-conference on the topic of Climate Inequalities. Stephane Hallegate (the World Bank’s Chief Economic Advisor for Climate) gave a keynote presentation. The programme also included short student 'egg-timer’ presentations, offering an opportunity to receive feedback on research.

Polarising perceptions, converging preferences: How inflation narratives shape inequality beliefs and policy support
9 March 2026

Speaker:
Victoria Hünewaldt, PhD candidate, University of Siena

In a nationally representative online survey experiment with 4,000 respondents in Germany, we study how inflation narratives shape beliefs about the distributional consequences of inflation and attitudes toward mitigating policies. We first elicit respondents’ top-of-mind narratives for the recent surge in inflation using an open-ended question. We find that respondents predominantly attribute recent inflation to the war in Ukraine and to supply-side shocks. Participants are then randomly exposed to one of three newspaper-based narratives emphasising either pent-up demand, the energy price crisis, or corporate price-gouging. In the control group, participants perceive lower income households as well as small and medium-sized firms to be disproportionately burdened by inflation, and a majority of proposed mitigation policies receives broad public support.

Status mobility in China: past and present
4 March 2026

Speaker:
Professor Steven Durlauf, Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor and Director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy

This talk will describe intergenerational mobility in China for two distinct epochs: the last 120 years of the Qing Dynasty and the last 30 years for modern China. Novel Markov chain approaches to measuring mobility are employed which provide insights into transitional versus long run mobility patterns for the two periods.