皮凯蒂、赛斯和祖克曼对不平等研究的贡献——科睿唯安“引文桂冠”经济学奖得主学术贡献评介

Piketty,Saez and Zucman’s Contributions to Researches on Inequality

皮凯蒂、赛斯和祖克曼凭借对收入和财富分配的研究共同被授予2023年度科睿唯安“引文桂冠”经济学奖,预测他们可能问鼎未来的诺贝尔经济学奖。他们在经济不平等问题上的开创性研究不仅为该领域提供了海量的数据支持和深刻的理论见解,更对相关经济政策的制定产生了重大影响,极大地推进了人们对不平等问题的认识和理解。本文旨在概述皮凯蒂、赛斯和祖克曼的主要研究成就,重点归纳他们在不平等研究方面的主要贡献,包括不平等数据库的建立、不平等的长期演变趋势分析、不平等演变的成因及其影响机制,以及不平等问题的研究方法与应对策略等;同时,也将这些贡献与其他相关研究成果进行对比分析,以明确他们的学术观点和内容,在突出其原创性的同时,讨论其研究的潜在局限性。

Piketty,Saez and Zucman have profoundly impacted the field of income and wealth inequality throughtheir analyses of extensive historical data.They have jointly been named the 2023’s Citation Laureates in Economics fortheir research on income and wealth distribution by Clarivate,predicting that they may be win the Nobel Memorial Prizein Economics in the future.Their influential studies on economic inequality have significantly advanced people’sunderstanding of this issue,providing extensive data support,profound theoretical insights,and tangible impacts oneconomic policy-making.This paper aims to outline their main achievements in inequality research,including theestablishment of an inequality database,the analysis of long‐term inequality trends,the exploration of the causes andmechanisms of inequality evolution,and the study of methods and strategies to address inequality issues.The paper begins by introducing the backgrounds of Piketty,Saez and Zucman,and outlines their collaborativeachievements in the long‐term analyses of income and wealth distribution.They have worked together for a long time oninequality issues and the impact of tax policies,laying the foundation for using tax data to study inequality issues.Theyhave developed a method that can distribute almost all types of national income across different income groups.Theyadvocate for the imposition of a progressive global wealth tax to address the increasingly severe problem of wealthinequality.Next,this paper details Piketty,Saez and Zucman’s achievements in building a comprehensive database on incomeand wealth distribution.Relying on a wide range of historical data,Piketty,Saez and Zucman have created a detaileddataset covering multiple countries.By integrating national accounts,household surveys,tax records,and historicaladministrative data,they have successfully constructed a long‐term series of income and wealth distribution.Applyinguniform principles and methodologies,they have enabled meaningful international comparisons,providing significantsupport for a deeper understanding of long‐term income and wealth inequality on a global scale.This paper then summarizes Piketty,Saez and Zucman’s empirical research findings.Based on extensive historicaldata,they studied the long‐term trends of income and wealth inequality in most countries,finding that inequality usuallyfollows a U‐shaped curve,worsening at the beginning of the 20th century,decreasing after the Second World War,andthen rising again after the 1980s.The intensification of inequality is mainly driven by the trend of capital return ratesconsistently exceeding economic growth rates.Their research challenges previous assumptions and provides new evidenceon long‐term inequality trends.Additionally,this paper explores Piketty’s theoretical model of capital accumulation and the dynamics of income andwealth distribution in capitalist societies.Based on empirical analyses,he proposed three“fundamental laws”ofcapitalism,explaining the long‐term trends of inequality and their impact on society.This lays the foundation forunderstanding the dynamics of inequality under capitalism and formulating policies to curb the rise of inequality.The paper continues to explore Piketty,Saez and Zucman’s innovative contributions in quantifying the top‐incomeand wealth shares and developing the distributive national accounts framework.They focus on analyzing top incomeshares using tax data,providing a unique perspective that household surveys cannot offer.Their concept of“distributivenational accounts”aims to distribute almost all national income across different income percentiles,changing the researchlandscape in this field.The paper also discusses Piketty,Saez and Zucman’s views on the role of tax policy in mitigating inequality issues.They note that the progressivity of global tax systems has gradually weakened,while the income proportion of high‐incomegroups has been rising.They emphasize the importance of implementing a progressive tax system to narrow the gapbetween the rich and the poor.Finally,this paper points out the limitations of the work of Piketty,Saez and Zucman,while emphasizing theirprofound and lasting impact on the field of inequality.They have fundamentally changed research methods and policydebates around inequality issues,advancing the understanding of inequality problems.