Prof Valentino Larcinese

This course is available on the BSc in History and Politics, BSc in International Social and Public Policy with Politics, BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (with a Year Abroad), BSc in Politics, BSc in Politics and Data Science, BSc in Politics and Economics, BSc in Politics and International Relations and BSc in Politics and Philosophy. This course is not available as an outside option nor to General Course students.

No particular prerequisites except familiarity with basic statistical concepts (at the level of ST108 or equivalent) and willingness to engage with quantitative research material.

The objective of this course is to provide an overview of the main theories, and related empirical evidence, regarding the determinants and consequences of the distribution of income and wealth. We will place a particular emphasis on the role played by political and institutional factors and the way inequality in material wealth shapes political influence, hence steering policy and institutions towards the creation and preservation of inequality. A central theme of the material covered in this course is the connection between economic and political inequality. We will draw on literature from political science, economic history and economics. We will cover the following topics:

- Inequality: key concepts and measurement

- Wealth and income inequality: evolution over time and across countries

- Explanations of economic inequality: XIX and XX century thinkers

- Inequality in the XXI century: globalization and technological change

- The political economy of redistribution

- Taxation, redistribution and the growth of the public sector

- Political institutions and welfare systems

- Political influence and political inequality: campaign finance

- Political influence and political inequality: mass media

- Inequality and populism

10 hours of lectures and 13 hours and 30 minutes of classes in the AT.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay and 1 presentation in the AT.

Branko Milanovic: Visions of Inequality, Harvard University Press 2023

Thomas Piketty: Capital in the 21st Century, harvard University Press 2014

Roemer, J.E. et al., 2009. The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality. 1st ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Atkinson, Anthony B, and François Bourguignon, 2000. Handbook of Income Distribution. Vol. 1, Oxford: Elsevier Science & Technology.

Angus Deaton: The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, Princeton University Press 2015

Carles Boix, Political Order and Inequality, Cambridge University Press 2015

Essay (75%, 4000 words) in the WT Week 1.
Presentation (25%) in the AT.