Capital in the twenty-first century

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Title:

Capital in the twenty-first century

Author:

Piketty, Thomas, 1971- author.

Goldhammer, Arthur, translator.

General Note:

Translation of the author's Le capital au XXIe siècle.

Contents:

Income and output -- Growth : illusions and realities -- The metamorphoses of capital -- From old Europe to the new world -- The long-run capital/income ratio -- Capital's share vs. labor's share in the twenty-first century -- Inequality and concentration : an initial orientation -- The two worlds -- Inequality in the income from labor -- Inequality in the ownership of capital -- Merit and inheritance in the long run -- Global inequality of wealth in the twenty-first century -- A social state for the twenty-first century -- Rethinking the progressive income tax -- A global tax on capital -- The question of the public debt.

Physical Description:

viii, 685 pages 25 cm

Subject Term:

Author(s):

Publisher:

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,

Publication Date:

2014

ISBN:

9780674430006

Publication Information:

Cambridge Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.

Call Number:

332 PIKETTY

Holds: Copies:

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Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607002868449	Adult Nonfiction	332 PIKETTY	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

A New York Times #1 Bestseller
An Amazon #1 Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller
A USA Today Bestseller
A Sunday Times Bestseller
A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century
Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Winner of the British Academy Medal
Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century , Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.

Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.

A work of extraordinary ambition, originality, and rigor, Capital in the Twenty-First Century reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

Author Notes

Thomas Piketty was born in Clichy, France on May 7, 1971. He received a M.Sc. in mathematics at Ecole Normale Supérieure and a PhD in Economics at EHESS and at LSE. He is a professor at the Paris School of Economics. His articles have appeared in numerous journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the American Economic Review, and the Review of Economic Studies. He has written several books including Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The rich get richer, through no fault-or virtue-of their own, according to this sweeping study of wealth in the modern world. Economist Piketty's formula "r > g" expresses the simple but profound insight that because the returns on capital-interest on savings, stock dividends and appreciation, rent from a farm or apartment building-usually exceed the economy's growth rate, wealth (especially inherited wealth) tends to grow faster than wages and become more concentrated at the top of the income scale, and the economy increasingly caters to rich elites instead of ordinary workers. (The best antidote to this inexorable tendency, he argues, is a direct progressive tax on wealth.) Piketty makes his case with three centuries' worth of economic data from around the world organized in a trove of detailed but lucid tables and graphs. This is a serious, meaty economic treatise, but Piketty's prose (in Goldhammer's deft translation) is wonderfully readable and engaging, and illuminates the human reality behind the econometric stats-especially in his explorations of the role of capital in the novels of Jane Austen and Balzac. Full of insights but free of dogma, this is a seminal examination of how entrenched wealth and intractable inequality continue to shape the economy. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review

If you listen to many modern economists, you get the feeling they think that our global financial system can be explained by pristine numbers: math equals money and vice versa. Piketty, a French economist, isn't satisfied with how many angelic equations can be balanced on a transactional pin. He, along with his fellow researchers, burrowed into the deep loam of European family inheritances, financial records, and other reports accumulated over the course of many decades. Using this historical approach, Piketty argues that the economic divide between haves and have-nots is increasing at a potentially calamitous rate, and he offers constructive solutions for this global state of affairs. Narrator L.J. Ganser is a solid match with the material, authoritative without being overbearing. VERDICT Recommended for most libraries, as the print version has been a surprise hit.-Kelly Sinclair, Temple P.L., TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
Part 1 Income and Capital
1 Income and Output	p. 39
2 Growth: Illusions and Realities	p. 72
Part 2 The Dynamics of the Capital/Income Ratio
3 The Metamorphoses of Capital	p. 113
4 From Old Europe to the New World	p. 140
5 The Capital/Income Ratio over the Long Run	p. 164
6 The Capital-Labor Split in the Twenty-First Century	p. 199
Part 3 The Structure of Inequality
7 Inequality and Concentration: Preliminary Bearings	p. 237
8 Two Worlds	p. 271
9 Inequality of Labor Income	p. 304
10 Inequality of Capital Ownership	p. 336
11 Merit and Inheritance in the Long Run	p. 377
12 Global Inequality of Wealth in the Twenty-First Century	p. 430
Part 4 Regulating Capital in the Twenty-First Century
13 A Social State for the Twenty-First Century	p. 471
14 Rethinking the Progressive Income Tax	p. 493
15 A Global Tax on Capital	p. 515
16 The Question of the Public Debt	p. 540
Conclusion	p. 571
Notes	p. 579
Contents in Detail	p. 657
List of Tables and Illustrations	p. 665
Index	p. 671

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents