The democratic ideal has always been related to a moderate level of inequality. I think one big reason why electoral democracy flourished in 19th century America better than 19th century Europe is because you had more equal distribution of wealth in America.

The U.S. is the country that invented progressive taxation of income and of inherited wealth in the 1910s and 20s.

We know too little about global wealth dynamics, so we need international transmission of bank information.

When inequality gets to an extreme, it is completely useless for growth.

I loved American universities. In many ways, they are better organized - certainly than French universities.

Wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence.

The discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences.