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.
Thomas PikettyThe U.S. is the country that invented progressive taxation of income and of inherited wealth in the 1910s and 20s.
Thomas PikettyI certainly agree that capital is not a one-dimensional object, and that the return on capital takes very different forms for different assets or different people.
Thomas PikettyIt's not Utopian to believe that we can create a global registry of financial assets so we know who owns what in different countries.
Thomas Piketty