Causes and consequences of economic inequalities: from Marx to Piketty 2400-PLSM104A

Socio-economic inequalities (in income, consumption, wealth, but also in health or happiness) have recently become one of the most important and popular topics of research in economics. Strong impulse in this direction was given by Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Harvard University Press, 2014. The book presents a vision of severely increased economic inequalities in capitalism that will lead to a return to patrimonial capitalism. Whether the rise of inequalities in capitalism is inevitable was also studied earlier by famous economists such as Karl Marx and Vilfredo Pareto.

Within this MA seminar students may write empirical and analytical theses verifying economic theories of inequality by Piketty, Marx, Pareto and others. The topics of the theses may concern determinants or effects of inequalities, quality of data used in empirical research on inequality, comparisons of various theories of inequality, or historical accounts of issues related to inequality.

In particular, theses may concern the following topics:
- verification of assumptions and predictions of Piketty’s claim about growing inequalities in capitalism;
- verification of K. Marx’s claims about the evolution of inequality in capitalism;
- empirical testing of Pareto’s claims about the distribution of income and wealth;
- empirical studies on the effect of inequality on economic growth, innovation, happiness, crime, health, conflict etc.;
- studying evolution of inequalities in Poland and in other countries;
- measurement and explanation of inequalities in health, happiness and well-being;
- studying the effects of the rich people on the economy and politics;
- measuring inequality of opportunity for income, health and happiness
- the impact of the recent economic crisis on economic inequality.