The principal mechanism for convergence at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.

There is one great advantage to being an academic economist in France: here, economists are not highly respected in the academic and intellectual world or by political and financial elites. Hence they must set aside their contempt for other disciplines and their absurd claim to greater scientific legitimacy, despite the fact that they know almost nothing about anything.

I am not political. It is not my job. But I would be happy if politicians could read my work and draw some conclusions from it.

Our modern democratic ideal is based on the hope that inequalities will be based on merit more than inheritance or luck.

Das Kapital, I think, is very difficult to read, and for me, it was not very influential.

When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.

It's not Utopian to believe that we can create a global registry of financial assets so we know who owns what in different countries.