Economic History : Capital, Inequality, Growth (Master APE & PPD, Paris School of Economics) Thomas Piketty Academic year Syllabus & Course Material (check on line for updated versions)on line

Office hours: Tuesdays 9h-12h, Jourdan B101 Course web page : (check on-line for updated versions)

The objective of this course is to present an introduction to economic history. Issues will include the following. How did the world distribution of output, income and wealth - both between and within countries - evolve since 1800, and how can we account for these changes? What was the interaction with the growth and capital accumulation process? Did inequality contribute to the 2008 financial crisis? How does this differ from 1929 ? Can we properly understand economic issues with representative-agent economic models? No. We need to study history and institutions: legal system, welfare state, taxation, etc. And to understand institutions, we need to study property, inequality and beliefs systems about the economy and the just society.

This course will take for the most part an historical and positive perspective on distributional issues For references on normative models of optimal redistribution, see my Public Economics coursePublic Economics course The course is organized in 8 classes of 3 hours (7 lectures + 1 exam) To validate the course, students are required : (1) to attend and actively participate to all lectures; (2) to take the exam (examples of past exams from another course are here)here

A quick roadmap of the lectures Lecture 1: Income, capital and growth since 1800: how did rich countries become rich? (Tuesday September 8 th 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 1: Income, capital and growth since 1800: how did rich countries become rich? Lecture 2: The dynamics of capital accumulation: private vs public capital and the Great Transformation Lecture 2: The dynamics of capital accumulation: private vs public capital and the Great Transformation (Tuesday September 15 th 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 3: Inequality in the long-run: labor income vs capital ownership Lecture 3: Inequality in the long-run: labor income vs capital ownership (Tuesday September 22 nd 2015, 13h45-16h45)

Lecture 4: Historical demography, family structures and the population transition Lecture 4: Historical demography, family structures and the population transition (Tuesday September 29 th 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 5: Slavery, forced labor and political rights in historical perspective (Tuesday October 6 th 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 5: Slavery, forced labor and political rights in historical perspective Lecture 6: Money, finance and crisis in historical perspective (Tuesday October 13 th 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 6: Money, finance and crisis in historical perspective Lecture 7: Government intervention and the regulation of capital and inequality Lecture 7: Government intervention and the regulation of capital and inequality (Tuesday October 27 th 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 8: Exam (Tuesday November 3 rd 2015, 13h45-16h45) Lecture 8: Exam

General references To a large extent the course will follow this book: T. Piketty, Capital in the 21 st century, Harvard Univ. Press 2014Capital in the 21 st century I will also draw heavily on the following two books: A. Maddison, The World Economy – A Millennial Perspective, OECD 2001 (database (xls)) (pdf)(website)The World Economy – A Millennial Perspectivedatabase (xls)pdfwebsite P. Lindert, Growing Public – Social Spending and Economic Growth since the 18 th Century, Oxford Univ. Press 2004 P. Lindert See also «Putting Distribution Back at the Center of Economics », Journal of Economic Perspectives 2015Putting Distribution Back at the Center of Economics « Vers une économie politique et historique », Annales – Histoire, sciences sociales 2015 Vers une économie politique et historique

Reading list Lecture 1 Lecture 2

General references in economic history: TK K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 1944; 1957 F. Braudel J. Diamond; Tilly? R. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007 D. Acemoglu, J. Robinson, Why Nations Fail - The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, Random House, 2012 D. Acemoglu

General references on historical inequality dynamics: S. Kuznets, 1953 A. Atkinson, A. Harrison,1978 A. Atkinson, T. Piketty, E. Saez, « Top Incomes in the Long Run of History », JEL 2010 F. Alvaredo, A. Atkinson, T. Piketty, E. Saez, “The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective“, JEP 2013 (updated series on the World Wealth and Incomes Database)The Top 1% in International and Historical PerspectiveWorld Wealth and Incomes Database T. Piketty, G. Zucman, « Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries “, QJE 2014, slides, data appendix« Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries slidesdata appendix T. Piketty, G. Zucman, “Wealth and Inheritance in the Long- Run”, Handbook of Income Distribution, 2015Wealth and Inheritance in the Long- Run T. Piketty, E. Saez, “Inequality in the long run”, Science 2014Inequality in the long run “About Capital in the 21 st century”, AER 2015 (other symposia)About Capital in the 21 st centuryother symposia