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Thomas Piketty

Born: May 07, 1971 – Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Thomas Piketty is a French economist and public intellectual whose work focuses on wealth inequality, capital accumulation, taxation, and the history of income distribution. He is best known for Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital and Ideology, influential books that brought long-run inequality research to a broad global readership.

Biography & Author's Journey

Thomas Piketty was born in Clichy, France, on May 7, 1971, and moved quickly through France’s elite academic track. He studied mathematics at the École normale supérieure, completed a doctorate in economics through EHESS and the London School of Economics’ European doctoral program, and taught at MIT from 1993 to 1995 while still in his early twenties. A decisive turn came when he left the American academic track and returned to France, later explaining that he wanted to work closer to the historical and sociological traditions of Paris. ((https://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/cv-en?utm_source=openai))

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Quotes

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Not at all. No, I am not a Marxist
-Why do the rich get richer?
quote
The way wealth has been taxed in this country directly is through the property tax
-CNN Your Money
quote
The two have come together historically, and that's a big message
-Thomas Piketty On Creating A More Equal Society
quote
But I think we could have done even better
-A Brief History of Equality webinar
quote
I'm not really a model driven person
-An interview with Thomas Piketty
quote
They will not tolerate extreme inequality anymore
-Capital in the 2020s
quote
These issues are too important to be left to economists
-Full transcript: Denis Staunton's interview

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Community Voices

"Thomas Piketty has revolutionised our understanding of inequality"

Mike Savage

"Piketty has written an extraordinarily important book"

Martin Wolf

"Piketty's work will change both the way we think about society and the way we do economics"

Paul Krugman

"Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore"

John Cassidy

"Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force"

Steven Pearlstein

"Thomas Piketty: Marx 2.0"

TIME

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