Contradictions of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Pat Hudson is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at Cardiff University. Her books include The Industrial Revolution (1992) and History by Numbers: An Introduction to Quantitative Approaches (second edition 2016). Recently, she coedited (with Francesco Boldizzoni) The Routledge Handbook of Global Economic History (2016). Keith Tribe taught economics at Keele University in the 1980s and 1990s before taking early retirement in 2002. Since then he has continued to write, translate and teach. He is currently teaching the history of economics at the University of Birmingham. His books include Governing Economy (1988), Strategies of Economic Order (1995/2007) and The Economy of the Word (2015).

This excellent volume effectively exploits and builds on ‘the Piketty opportunity’: the contested new terrain created by Thomas Piketty’s challenge to mainstream economics and economic history. With their deep knowledge of the history of the study of inequality in various regions of the world and in the discipline of economics, the contributors engage critically with Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century to provide a plethora of new insights and important alternative policy proposals. This volume demonstrates why public policy-makers need to pay full attention to historians in grappling with the political trilemma of our age posed by Piketty: democracy, capitalism and inequality.

• 1. Introduction Pat Hudson and Keith TribePart I: Concepts and Models 2. Capital and Wealth G. C. Harcourt, University of New South Wales and Keith Tribe3. Inequality Keith Tribe4. Models, Money and Housing Avner Offer, University of OxfordPart II: Piketty in Western National Contexts 5. French Idiosyncracies Gauthier Lanot, Umeå University6. Fact or Fiction? Complexities of Economic Inequality in Twentieth-Century Germany Jan-Otmar Hesse, University of Bayreuth7. Collective Wealth Formation: Conflict and Compromise in Sweden, 1950-2000 Ylva Hasselberg and Henry Ohlsson, Uppsala University8. A Confusion of Capital in the United States Mary A. O'Sullivan, University of Geneva9. Distributional Politics: The Search for Equality in Britain since the First World War Jim Tomlinson, University of GlasgowPart III: Piketty: Global Commentaries 10. Looking at Piketty from the Periphery Luis Bértola, Universidad de la República, Uruguay11. The Differences of Inequality in Africa Patrick Manning and Matt Drwenski, University of Pittsburgh12. Income Distribution in Pre-War Japan Tetsuji Okazaki, University of Tokyo13. Piketty and India Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston CollegePart IV: Prospect 14. Goals and Measures of Development: The Piketty Opportunity Pat Hudson15. Wealth and Income Distribution: New Theories for a New Era Ravi Kanbur,Cornell University and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University