Wealth, Elites and Tax Justice

This programme conducts innovative interdisciplinary research bridging the economic analysis of wealth with analyses of the social, cultural and political aspects of intensifying wealth inequalities. We thus aim to expose the seriousness of wealth divides not purely in economic terms, but also as underpinning and underscoring a wide array of social divisions.

Our work demonstrates the systemic social challenges that wealth inequality presents. We draw together economists, anthropologists, media scholars, political scientists, sociologists, social policy researchers, historians, legal scholars. Our work includes prize winning academic publications (including the award of the Siegfried Landshut Prize by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research for Mike Savage’s 2021 book, The Return of Inequality). We are committed to analysing the challenge on wealth inequality on a global basis, and although some of our research centres on the UK, we also pursue ground-breaking studies of the comparative analysis of wealth inequality, such as by Nora Waitkus. As well as analysing the challenges of wealth inequality, we are concerned with identifying on strategies to challenge this, including innovative work in political communication by Michael Vaughan. Here, we also work with campaigning groups, such as the Runnymede Trust. This comparative research is assisted by active collaboration with the Atlantic Fellows programme in Social and Economic Equity.

We are concerned with the promotion of global financial transparency, offshore wealth, and tax avoidance. Strategies seeking to challenge wealth inequality also require interventions about more positive conceptions of wealth, (e.g., local wealth building strategies, strategies for reaffirming democratic ideals of equal human worth and dignity in the face of growing economic disparities perceived as reflecting the unequal social or moral worth of individuals).

This programme drew on the expertise of numerous LSE academics from different Departments, and from our international partners, including those in the global south. We have especially strong relationships in Africa with the African Centre for Excellence in Inequality Research, led by Murray Leibbrandt at UCT, and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at University of Witwatersrand which has a specific project on Intergenerational Wealth and Taxation. In South America, we work closely the Chilean Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES) who have a programme of research.

Wealth Inequality

Changing the narrative on wealth inequality
This research project is interested in public perceptions of and attitudes towards wealth, the wealthy and wealth inequality

Exploring an extreme wealth line
Researchers from LSE and beyond explore the viability of an Extreme Wealth Line: a counterpart to the more established extreme poverty line.

Exposing the racial wealth divide in South Africa and the UK
This project examines the scale and dynamics of racialised wealth divides across the globe, with a specific interest in the UK and South Africa.

Global Wealth Monitor
This project constructs consistent wealth distributions for all countries over time and combines them into a global distribution, to enable cross-country comparisons and track trends in global wealth inequality.

Talking about wealth - a podcast series
This 6-part podcast series funded by the JRF’s Storyteller’s Fund uses ideas in Dr Sarah Kerr’s book Wealth, poverty and enduring inequality: Let’s talk wealtherty to explore some of the trends and issues in wealth inequality in the UK today.

Class and elites

Anti-elitism toward wealth elites in communication
A Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship project looking at the role of communication in mediating inequality and democratic responsiveness

Born to Rule: the making and remaking of the British elite
A uniquely data-rich analysis of the British elite from the Victorian era to today: who gets in, how they get there, what they like and look like, where they go to school, and what politics they perpetuate.

Elite Mobility in a World of Connections and Disconnections: Golden Passports, Golden Visas, and Digital Nomads
This project draws on over a decade of fieldwork across 22 countries and a newly assembled database of global trends to unpack the operation of the market in mobility for the privileged.

The Politics of Deflecting Privilege
This project uses a combination of survey and experimental data to uncover the political ideology that is associated with deflecting privilege.

The World Elite Database
The World Elite Database (WED) is a cooperative data and analysis project led by researchers on elite populations across the world. The UK Team is based at the International Inequalities Institute.

Taxation

Examining the UK’s ‘non-dom’ regime
This project examines the effects of tax policy on the behaviour of the wealthy, focusing specifically on the UK's long-standing non-domiciled ('non-dom') tax regime.

Methods

International network for qualitative and mixed-methods research at scale
This project brings together large-scale qualitative and mixed-methods studies from across countries to share expertise, foster methodological alignment, and build the foundations for meaningful cross-national insight.

UK Voices
This project, in collaboration with the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures based at the University of Bristol, considers methods for enhancing qualitative methods in the UK data infrastructure.

• Professor Mike Savage, Wealth, Elites, and Tax Justice Research Programme Leader, LSE III
• Professor Arun Advani, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Warwick
• Professor Neil Cummins, Professor, Department of Economic History, LSE
• Dr Katharina Hecht, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, University of Konstanz
• Mina Mahmoudzadeh, Research Assistant, LSE III
• Professor Sam Friedman, Professor, Department of Sociology, LSE
• Dr Sarah Kerr, Visiting Fellow, LSE III
• Dr Kristina Kolbe, Visiting Fellow, LSE III
• Dr María-Luisa Mendez Layera, Director of the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies
• Babette May, PhD student, Department of Sociology, LSE
• Adele Oliver, PhD student, University of Glasgow
• Dr Michael Vaughan, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, LSE III
• Dr Annalena Oppel, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, LSE III
• Professor Aaron Reeves, Professor, Department of Sociology, LSE
• Dr Elisabeth Schimpfössl, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Sociology and Policy, Aston University, Birmingham
• Dr Faiza Shaheen, Distinguished Policy Fellow, LSE III
• Dr Andy Summers, Associate Professor of Law, LSE
• Dr Kristin Surak, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, LSE
• Dr Emma Taylor, Lecturer in Education, Kings College London and Visiting Fellow, LSE III
• Dr Nora Waitkus, Professor of Sociology, Max Weber Institute at Heidelberg University and Visiting Professor, LSE III

Blogs

Kerr, S. (2026) How to tell better creative stories about wealth inequality. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Balata, F. (2025) It is time to draw a line under extreme wealth. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Burchardt, T., Robeyns, I., Vaughan, M., Gowland, R., Lawson, M., Shotter, M. & Sriskandarajah, D. (2025) Let’s be clear – an Extreme Wealth Line is not a cap on wealth. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Friedman, S. & Reeves, A. (2025) Not such humble origins? The British elite’s thirst to tell an “upward story” of their success. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Hilhorst, S. & Koch, I. L. (2025) What “corruption talk” tells us about class politics today. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Kerr, S. (2025) What kind of social problem is wealth inequality?. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Savage, M. (2025) We need to talk more about class. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Shaheen, F. (2025) To counter elite capture we must reinvigorate class consciousness. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Vaughan, M. (2025) “Inequality as spectacle” – or why Mangione trumps Gini. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Vaughan, M., Kerr, S. & Oppel, A. (2025) It’s time to face up to power in the debate about wealth inequality. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Advani, A. (2024) Too little, too late? Inheritance tax. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Advani, A., Lonsdale, A. & Summers, A. (2024) The UK’s Capital Gains Tax system needs reforming – here’s how. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Balata, F. (2024) Shifting the tax debates: Why UK leaders should support a global minimum tax on billionaires. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Robeyns, I. (2024) Limitarianism: The case for capping personal wealth. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Savage, M. (2024) Why wealth inequality matters. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Shaheen, F. (2024) Rachel Reeves’s Budget missed a golden chance to reduce inequalities – and the UK will suffer as a result. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Vaughan, M. (2024) Good, bad, billionaire discourse. LSE Inequalities Blog.

Articles

Méndez, M.L., Savage, M. and Lareau, A. (2026), The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites, Oxford Handbooks, New York, NY

Vaughan, M., & Kerr, S. (2025) Visual representations of wealth inequality in political communication. Visual Communication.

Vaughan, M., & Schieferdecker, D. (2025) Seeing a new type of economic inequality discourse: inequality as spectacle in the “Billionaire Space Race”. International Journal of Communication.

Bortun, V., Reeves, A., & Friedman, S. (2024) ‘We didn’t know what we were eating tomorrow’: how class origin shapes the political outlook of members of the Parliament in Britain. Political Studies.

Friedman, S., & Reeves, A. (2024) Born to Rule: the making and remaking of the British elite. Belknap: Harvard University Press.

Higgins, K., Friedman, S., & Reeves, A. (2024) “Outsiders on the inside”: how minoritised elites respond to racial inequality. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1–21.

Kerr, Sarah and Vaughan, Michael (2024) Changing the narrative on wealth inequality. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Kerr, S., & Vaughan, M. (2024) The effects of the framing of wealth inequality: a literature review. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Kerr, S. (2024) Wealth, poverty and enduring inequality: let’s talk wealtherty. Policy Press.

Savage, Mike; Mahmoudzadeh, Mina; Mann, Elizabeth; Vaughan, Michael; Hilhorst, Sacha (2024) Why Wealth Inequality Matters.

Surak, K. (2024) Citoyenneté à vendre: stratégies de marchandisation de l’État. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. 251(1). 50–73.

Surak, K. (2024) Do passports pay off? Assessing the economic outcomes of citizenship by investment programs. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Advani, Arun, Hughson, Helen and Summers, Andy (2023) How much tax do the rich really pay? Evidence from the UK. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 39 (3). pp.406-437. ISSN 0266-903X.

Ashley, Louise, Boussebaa, Mehdi, Friedman, Sam, Harrington, Brooke, Heusinkveld, Stefan, Gustafsson, Stefan, and Muzio, Daniel (2023) Professions and Inequality: challenges, controversies, and opportunities. Journal of Professions and Organization, 10, 80-98, ISSN 2051-8803 (In Press)

Dewilde, Caroline and Waitkus, Nora (2023) Housing and Inequality. Handbook of Labor, Human Resource and Population Economics (Ed. by K. Zimmermann). Springer. In print.

Dray, Sacha, Landais, Camille and Stantcheva, Stefanie (2023) Wealth and Property Taxation in the United States, R and R at the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Prieur, Annick, Savage, Mike and Flemmen, Magne Paalgard (2023) Distinctions in the making: A theoretical discussion of youth and cultural capital. The British Journal of Sociology, 1– 16.

Reeves, Aaron, Andersen, Kate, Reader, Mary and Warnock, Rosalie (2023) Social security, exponential inequalities, and Covid-19: how welfare reform in the UK left larger families exposed to the scarring effects of the pandemic. In: Exponential Inequalities: Equality Law in Times of Crisis. Oxford University Press USA, 61 - 78.

Speed, Ewen and Reeves, Aaaron (2023) Why is Lived Experience Absent from Social Security Policymaking?, Journal of Social Policy. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–16.

Vaughan, Michael and Heft, Annett (2023), Anti-elitism in the European Radical Right in Comparative Perspective, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies , 61 (1), 76-94.

Vaughan, Michael, Gruber, Johannes B. and Langer, Ana Ines (2023) The tension between connective action and platformization: disconnected action in the GameStop short squeeze, New Media & Society

Worth, Eve, Reeves, Aaron and Friedman, Sam (2023) Is there an old girls’ network? Girls’ schools and recruitment to the British elite, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 44 (1). 1 - 25.

Advani, Arun and Summers, Andy (2022) Measuring and taxing top incomes and wealth. IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities

Advani, Arun, Ooms, Tahnee and Summers, Andrew ORCID: 0000-0002-4978-7743 (2022) Missing incomes in the UK: evidence and policy implications. Journal of Social Policy. ISSN 0047-2794

Advani, Arun and Tarrant, Hannah (2021) Behavioural responses to a wealth tax. Fiscal Studies, 42 (3-4). 509 - 537. ISSN 0143-5671

Advani, Arun and Tarrant, Hannah (2021) Behavioural responses to a wealth tax. Fiscal Studies, 42 (3-4). 509 - 537. ISSN 0143-5671

Advani, Arun, Bangham, George and Leslie, Jack (2021) The UK's wealth distribution and characteristics of high-wealth households. Fiscal Studies, 42 (3-4). 397 - 430. ISSN 0143-5671

Advani, Arun, Bangham, George and Leslie, Jack (2021) The UK's wealth distribution and characteristics of high-wealth households. Fiscal Studies, 42 (3-4). 397 - 430. ISSN 0143-5671

Advani, Arun, Hughson, Helen and Tarrant, Hannah (2021) Revenue and distributional modelling for a UK wealth tax. Fiscal Studies, 42 (3-4). 699 - 736. ISSN 0143-5671

Advani, Arun, Miller, Helen and Summers, Andy (2021) Taxes on wealth: time for another look? Fiscal Studies, 42 (3-4). 389 - 395. ISSN 0143-5671

Advani, Arun, Summers, Andrew and Tarrant, Hannah (2021) Measuring UK top incomes.CAGE Working Paper (490). University of Warwick, Warwick, UK.

Advani, Arun, Chamberlain, Emma, Summers, Andy (2020) A wealth tax for the UK: Final Report of the Wealth Tax Commission.

Advani, Arun, Koenig, Felix, Pessina, Lorenzo, Summers, Andy (2020) Importing Inequality: Immigration and the Top 1 Percent, IZA Discussion Papers, No. 13731, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Cummins, Neil (2022) The hidden wealth of English dynasties, 1892–2016.Economic History Review, 75 (3). 667 - 702. ISSN 0013-0117 Item availability may be restricted.

Cummins, Neil (2021) Where is the Middle Class? Evidence from 60 million English Death and Probate Records, 1892-1992.Journal of Economic History, 81(2): 359-404.

Díaz Pabón, F.A., Leibbrandt, M., Ranchhod, V. and Savage, M., 2021. Piketty comes to South Africa. The British Journal of Sociology, 72(1), pp.106-124.

Hecht, Katharina, Burchardt, Tania and Davis, Abigail (2022) Richness, insecurity and the welfare state.Journal of Social Policy. ISSN 0047-2794 (In Press)

Koch, I., Fransham, M., Cant, S., Ebrey, J., Glucksberg, L. and Savage, M., 2021. Social polarisation at the local level: a four-town comparative study on the challenges of politicising inequality in Britain. Sociology, 55(1), pp.3-29.

Paidipaty, P. and Savage, M., 2021. Debating Capital and Ideology: An introduction to the special issue. The British Journal of Sociology, 72(1), pp.3-7.*

Pfeffer, Fabian T. and Waitkus, Nora (2021) Comparing child wealth inequality across countries. RSF, 7 (3). pp. 28-49. ISSN 2377-8253

Savage, Mike and Waitkus, Nora (2022) Property, wealth, and social change: Piketty as a social science engineer. British Journal of Sociology, 72 (1). 39 - 51.

Savage, M. 2021. The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of History, Boston, MA, Harvard UP, pp. x1 + 422. Korean and Chinese translations pending

Savage, M, and Li, C. "Introduction to thematic series "new sociological perspectives on inequality"." Journal of Chinese Sociology (2021): 1-6*.

Savage, M. and Schmidt, C.M., 2021. The politics of the excluded: abjection and reconciliation amongst the British precariat. The Journal of Chinese Sociology, 7(1), pp.1-27.

Upton-Hansen, C., Kolbe, K. and Savage, M (2021) An institutional politics of place: Rethinking the critical function of art in times of growing inequality. Cultural Sociology, 15(2), pp.171-190.

Waitkus, Nora and Minkus, Lara (2021) Investigating the gender wealth gap across occupational classes. Feminist Economics, 27 (4). pp. 114-147. ISSN 1354-5701

Working papers

Burchardt, T., Vaughan, M. & Robeyns, I. (2026) The bottom line and the top line: insights from poverty measurement for developing an extreme wealth line. (III Working Paper 172). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Robeyns, I., Vaughan, M. & Burchardt, T. (2026) Foundations for a harm-based extreme wealth line. (III Working Paper 171). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Gronwald, V. (2025) The promises and limits of transparency: anti-tax evasion and anti-money laundering efforts in financial centres. (III Working Paper 151). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Simson, R. & Mahmoudzadeh, M. (2024) Inherited wealth in post-apartheid South Africa: new perspectives from probate records. (III Working Paper 146). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Waitkus, N., Savage, M. & Toft, M. (2024) Wealth and class analysis: exploitation, closure and exclusion. (III Working Paper 143). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Friedman, S., Gronwald, V., Summers, A. & Taylor, E. (2024) Tax flight? Britain’s wealthiest and their attachment to place. (III Working Paper 131). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Karagiannaki, E. (2023) The scale and drivers of ethnic wealth gaps across the wealth distribution in the UK: evidence from Understanding Society. (III Working Paper Series). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Advani, A., Burgherr, D., Savage, M. & Summers, A. (2022) The UK’s global economic elite: a sociological analysis using tax data. (III Working Paper Series 79). International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Racial justice and wealth inequality: a call for action
10 June 2025
Watch the recording here

Speakers: Dr Shabna Begum, Dr Kojo Koram, Professor Mike Savage, Mina Mahmoudzadeh, Esiri Bukata

This event marks the launch of ‘Why the UK Racial Wealth Divide Matters: a Call for Action’, a major new report written by the LSE International Inequalities Institute for the Runnymede Trust. Speakers discuss key findings, highlighting the scale of the racial wealth divide and how it has changed amid the growth of wealth assets in recent decades.

Inequality in the 21st century
6 June 2025

Speakers: Professor Gurminder K Bhambra, Professor Michèle Lamont, Professor Mike Savage
This keynote panel brings together three eminent sociologists to reflect on how sociology can help us understand contemporary inequalities. The discussion explores how the sociological imagination can illuminate the challenges shaping social life today.

Strategies for using AI and digital methods to conduct secondary analysis of qualitative interview data

4 June 2025

This closed workshop was co-organised by the LSE based UK Voices project which is considering how to enhance qualitative methods in the UK data infrastructure and by the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures based at the University of Bristol

Where do we draw the line: exploring an extreme wealth line
6 March 2025
Watch the recording here

Speakers: Fernanda Balata, Professor Olivier De Schutter, Professor Ingrid Robeyns, Gary Stevenson

Extreme wealth concentration continues to deepen as societies grapple with inequality, climate breakdown and democratic backsliding. This event explores whether the time has come to define an extreme wealth line and examine the risks that extreme wealth poses.

Wealth, poverty and enduring inequality: let's talk wealtherty
19 February 2025
Watch the recording here

Speakers: Dr Sarah Kerr, Professor Armine Ishkanian, Dr Rajiv Prabhakar, Frank Soodeen
This event launches Sarah Kerr's new book, which asks what happens when researchers and policymakers shift their focus from poverty to wealth. The discussion explores how looking 'up' can change our understanding of enduring inequality.

Does class inequality still matter?
4 February 2025
Watch the recording here

Speakers: Zarah Sultana, Professor Mike Savage, Aditya Chakrabortty, Clare MacGillivray

Ten years after the publication of Social Class in the 21st Century, this event revisits its findings and asks whether class inequalities have changed. The discussion explores why class has fallen off the political agenda and what can be done to build solidarity in contemporary Britain.

From rage to riches: how fixing wealth inequality defeats populism
27 November 2024
Watch the recording here

Speakers: Liam Byrne, Dr Faiza Shaheen, Professor Jonathan Hopkin

There is no doubt that there is a gaping wealth gap between the super-rich and the rest of us. Yet it doesn’t need to be like this. There are policies and ideas that can grow but decarbonise the economy, decentralise power and democratise opportunity and wealth.

Born to rule: the making and remaking of the British elite
Co-hosted with LSE Department of Sociology
3 October 2024
Watch the recording here

Speakers: Professor Sam Friedman, Hashi Mohamed, Professor Aaron Reeves, Professor Lauren Rivera, Dr Faiza Shaheen

Are today’s power brokers a conservative elite born to privilege, or is a new progressive elite emerging? Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman draw on data from more than 125,000 members of the British elite to examine how Britain’s ruling class has changed from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

How do we campaign around wealth inequality?
Co-hosted with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
13 May 2024
Watch the recording here.

Speakers: Professor Mike Savage, Faiza Shaheen, Shabna Begum
In the shadow of a UK general election, this event examines the politics of wealth inequality and how to build public awareness and campaigning action. Panellists consider how to shift debate towards socio-economic inequality and away from divisive culture war narratives.

Why wealth inequality matters: an expert roundtable
Workshop co-hosted with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
13 May 2024
Watch the recording here.

This closed roundtable event presented new and cutting-edge research from the III demonstrating the systemic problems that wealth inequality is generating in the UK.

The trading game
21 March 2024
Watch the recording here.

Speaker: Gary Stevenson

Gary Stevenson reflects on his journey from east London to becoming the youngest trader in the City. The discussion explores the moral and personal consequences of profiting from growing inequality and economic decline.

The Inequality of Wealth: Why it matters and how to fix it
28 February 2024
Watch the recording here.

Speakers: Liam Byrne, Professor Mike Savage, Katie Schmuecker

The super-rich have never had it so good, while millions struggle to afford housing, education and retirement. Drawing on his book The Inequality of Wealth, Liam Byrne examines the causes and consequences of wealth inequality and outlines potential solutions.

Why the racial wealth divide matters
22 November 2023

Speakers: Dr Shabna Begum, Dr Eleni Karagiannaki, Professor Vimal Ranchhod, Faeza Meyer

This event explores the growing importance of wealth in shaping social mobility and examines how wealth inequality is increasingly racialised. Speakers discuss why contemporary racial wealth divides need greater public and policy attention.

The golden passport: global mobility for millionaires
Co-hosted with the Department of Sociology
24 October 2023

Speakers: Dr Kristin Surak, Thomas Anthony, Oliver Bullough, Professor Jason Sharman

This event marks the publication of Kristin Surak’s book The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires. The discussion explores the global market for citizenship by investment and its implications for wealth, mobility and inequality.

Know Your Place: how society sets us up to fail – and what we can do about it
19 June 2023
Watch the event recording

Speakers: Dr Faiza Shaheen, Kimberly McIntosh, Gary Stevenson, Professor Gary Younge
This event marks the launch of Faiza Shaheen’s book Know Your Place. The panel discusses social mobility in Britain today and considers how society can create greater opportunities for all.

Are the rich getting richer? The challenge of wealth inequality
Hosted by LSE Festival: How Do We Get to a Post-COVID World?
18 June 2022

Speakers: Aroop Chatterjee, Dr Neil Cummins, Dr Kristin Surak
This event explores the growing concentration of wealth and the challenges it poses in a post-COVID world. The discussion examines how wealth inequality is changing and what its consequences may be for society.

Families and Money: Exploring Gender Inequality in Elite Families
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Department of Sociology
4 April 2022

Watch the video. Listen to the podcast.

Speakers: Professor Annette Lareau, Dr Aliya Rao, Sibylle Gollac
This event explores how money, wealth and gender shape relationships within elite families. Drawing on research and comparative perspectives, speakers discuss inequalities in the distribution and control of wealth across generations.

Global Tax Justice in the 21st Century: promises and challenges
Hosted by the Ralph Miliband Programme and the International Inequalities Institute
1 February 2022

Watch the video. Listen to the podcast.

Speakers: Dr Arun Advani, Alex Cobham, Professor Jayati Ghosh

This event examines the prospects and challenges of achieving global tax justice in the twenty-first century. Speakers discuss international efforts to address tax avoidance, wealth concentration and economic inequality.

Awards

• 'Social Polarisation at the Local Level: A Four-Town Comparative Study on the Challenges of Politicising Inequality in Britain' wins the SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence in Sociology. Drawing on sociology, anthropology and geography, the study uniquely combined quantitative analysis with ethnographic methods to compare the experience of living with intensifying inequality in four different towns in the UK. The paper had contributions from programme members Professor Mike Savage and Dr Luna Gluckburg.

Press

• The programme's research into people with non-domiciled status in the UK and the resulting abolishment has been featured widely in major news outlets including The Guardian, iNews, Bloomberg, Independent, BBC News,  The Telegraph,  FT, and New Statesman.
• The World Elite Database was featured in an article in the Financial Times.
• The programme's working paper, Tax flight? Britain’s wealthiest and their attachment to place, was covered widely in the press, including in Time Magazine, The Guardian and the Financial Times.
• The Born to Rule: the making and remaking of the British elite project has been covered widely in the press, including The Guardian, The Times and the Today in Focus podcast by The Guardian.
• The programme's workshops and conferences are regularly featured in the press. Both our Too much finance conference and Why wealth inequality matters event were featured in The Guardian (here and here).
• Kristin Surak’s research on Golden Passports, Golden Visas, and Digital Nomads has been featured widely across international media outlets including The Economist, The Telegraph, Al Jazeera, Newsweek, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, alongside in-depth interviews in BBC Radio 4 and NPR.

Too Much Finance

The III hosted the international research and policy conference Too Much Finance in January 2026, in collaboration with the Tax Justice Network, Atlantic Fellows for Social & Economic Equity (AFSEE), the Balanced Economy Project, The Finance Innovation Lab and the Manchester School journal. Over two days, researchers and policymakers examined an insight that is well-established but still underappreciated in policy design: oversized financial sectors undermine economic performance and fuel inequality.

Research findings were interwoven throughout policy discussions, with keynote talks delivered by Thorsten Beck and Jayati Ghosh, and a dedicated roundtable on translating evidence into policy implications. A series of reflections from participants will be published to share key takeaways and to extend the conversation toward practical change. The event was also featured in The Guardian.

Non-dom status abolished

As part of the 2024 Spring Budget, the former Chancellor announced that the non-domiciled (non-dom) tax regime will be phased out. From April 2025, people who move to the UK will not have to pay tax on money they earn overseas for the first four years. After that period, if they continue to live in the UK, they will pay the same tax as everyone else. This news followed influential research by Dr Arun Advani, Dr Andy Summers and David Burgherr showing that abolishing the regime could raise £3.2 billion a year for the UK economy. In 2023 the Labour Party pledged to abolish non-dom status, and the Conservative government was initially sceptical, but the compelling weight of evidence soon forced a change of view. The research was covered widely in major news outlets including The Guardian, iNews, Bloomberg, Independent, BBC News,  The Telegraph,  FT, and New Statesman.

Collaboration with Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The III has collaborated with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) to examine the role of framing in the politics of wealth inequality.

In Autumn 2024, the III and JRF ran focus groups to find out what the UK public thinks about wealth and wealth inequality, with support from New Economy Organisers’ Network, Future Narratives Lab, and Fairness Foundation. The results from these focus groups and a subsequent survey experiment which tested the effects of different frames on public opinion were published by JRF in June 2025 in the report 'Talking about wealth inequality'.

Following on from this work, Dr Sarah Kerr launched a 6-part podcast series in July 2025, funded by the JRF’s Storyteller’s Fund. The podcast uses ideas in Dr Sarah Kerr’s book Wealth, poverty and enduring inequality: Let’s talk wealtherty to explore some of the trends and issues in wealth inequality in the UK today. The aim of the podcast is to make a more accessible space for thinking and talking about wealth as a social problem, and specifically, for thinking about the effects of extreme private wealth ownership on social and environmental sustainability.

Changing the narrative on wealth inequality

In 2024, the III and JRF published a public-facing report, 'Changing the Narrative on Wealth Inequality', which summarises academic research on the framing of wealth inequality and offers provocations to support future collaboration between researchers and practitioners.

Workshops

A series of four workshops were held in early 2024. These workshops brought together representatives from social change organisations, including the Fairness Foundation, Women’s Budget Group, the Equality Trust, Tax Justice UK, and Patriotic Millionaires, alongside academics from seven institutions beyond LSE.

Mike Savage elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Mike Savage was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has honoured excellence and convened leaders from across disciplines and divides to examine new ideas, address issues of importance, and work together. The first members elected to the Academy in 1781 included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Professor Savage joins only eight other European sociologists who are Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. These include Gosta Esping-Anderson, Jurgen Habermas, and Anthony Giddens (the only other British sociologist so honoured).

Why wealth inequality matters

Over the past decade, wealth inequality – driven by the private ownership of assets such as property, savings and investments – has increasingly been recognised as a major divisive force in the UK, and across the globe. A new report on ‘Why wealth inequality matters’ was published by Mike Savage, Mina Mahmoudzadeh, Elizabeth Mann, Michael Vaughan and Sacha Hilhorst, with the aim of bringing this inequality into proper view. The report shows how wealth operates to amplify socio-economic inequalities associated with gender, race and class, and also serves to erode democratic engagement and political trust. This report was launched at an event on 13 May 2024, which aimed to equip policymakers, journalists and civil society groups with key insights that could be used for campaigning work in the run up to the General Election. The event received wide coverage, such as journalist Polly Toynbee’s The Guardian column and an article by Fairness Foundation.

Collaboration with the Runnymede Trust

The III and the Runnymede Trust published the report 'Why the UK racial wealth divide matters: a call for action'. This report explores how historic structural wealth barriers are hindering people of colour today. It demonstrates that the scale and nature of racial inequity in the ownership of wealth assets in the UK is a major issue of racial justice.

On Saturday 1 July 2023, the III collaborated with the Runnymede Trust and the LSE Department of Sociology to host Building Bridges: connecting stories and championing racial justice, a dynamic and inspiring day of knowledge exchange and collective action. Contributors included: Race & Health, Young Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Debt Justice, Nanny Solidarity Network, Voice of Domestic Workers, Just Fair, University of Leeds, Liberty, Netpol, No More Exclusions, Mentivity, and more.