The Economics of Inequality

The economist Branko Milanovic has remarked that “reading about global inequality is nothing less than reading about the economic history of the world.” While human societies have always registered some degree of material inequality, the issue reemerged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession as a central topic of public debate and academic study. As documented by Thomas Piketty, real wages have stagnated and most Americans have seen their standards of living decline while the share of income and wealth commanded by the top 1% has risen to levels unseen since the late-19th century. What explains sky-rocketing inequality in the 21st century? And what are the consequences—economic, social, political, and cultural—of inequality in not just the U.S., but across the globe?

Our central questions will include these: how do Milanovic’s “Kuznets’ waves” chart inequality through cycles of technological change, globalization, and political institutions? In what ways do Milanovic’s concepts of “citizen rent” and the “elephant curve” explain local and global structures and experiences of inequality? How do developments in advanced Western economies connect to transformations in China, India, and Latin America? What characterizes the new global plutocracy, and how do elites reproduce themselves across borders? Which methods are capable of conceptualizing inequality as a multi-faceted phenomenon involving not merely wealth, wages, and capital income, but also social and cultural capital? How will recent developments in artificial intelligence and automation reshape labor markets, concentrate economic and informational power, and generate new forms of divergence within and across countries? Finally, what is the future of inequality? Readings include selections from Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital and Ideology, as well as Branko Milanovic’s Global Inequality, The Haves and the Have-Nots and Capitalism, Alone.

Course Schedule

Sunday, 1:00-4:00pm ET
May 31 — June 21, 2026
4 weeks

$335.00

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