CANCELLED St Catharine's Political Economy Seminar Series: Sir Anthony Atkinson

Please note: this event has been CANCELLED

Wed 18 November 2015

St Catharine's College

Speaker
Sir Anthony Atkinson is a Fellow of Nuffield College, of which he was Warden from 1994 to 2005, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. He was an undergraduate at Churchill College (1963) and is an Honorary Fellow. He has been President of the Royal Economic Society, of the Econometric Society, of the European Economic Association, and of the International Economic Association. He has served on the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, the Pension Law Review Committee, and the Commission on Social Justice. He has been a member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique, advising the French Prime Minister, and of the European Statistics Governance Advisory Board, appointed by the EU Council of Ministers. He was knighted on 2001 for services to economics, and is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. His most recent books are Public economics in an age of austerity, published in 2014, and Inequality: What can be done?, published in April 2015 by Harvard University Press.

Talk Overview:
Sir Anthony Atkinson will discuss economic inequality, which has become centre stage in the political debate, with the US President, the Head of the IMF, and the Pope declaring that reducing inequality is high on their agenda. Inequality is seen as threatening the sustainability of the world economic system. But what the political leaders have not said is what they would do about it. In my seminar, I set out concrete policy proposals that could bring about a genuine shift in the distribution of income towards less inequality. I identify new policies in five areas: technology, employment, social security, the sharing of capital, and taxation. I stress the importance of drawing on the lessons of history, and of re-considering the underlying economics.

Cost: FOC