Distance Learning:

1.     The lecture will be offerd by TEAMs.
2.     teaching/learning methods: virtual synchron
3.     What do you expect from the students? Preparation of the respective chapters of the book by everyone
4.     How is attendance regulated? Obligatory attendance
5.     How does the assessment take place? see below

In this class we will discuss and analyse Tony Atkinson's last book "Inequality - What can be done?" which is his intellectual estate for all scholars of inequality. Tony Atkinson (1944-2017) is certainly the doyen of the theory of distribution (you may have a look on his obituaries there).

Please buy, rent or organize this book in advance!

I will present Chap.1-3 in the first two units (12/01/2020 and 12/15/2020). After this introduction an interim exam will follow:

Chap. 4 until Chap. 10 of the book will be presented by you (in groups of two or three; we will skip Chap.11). It is expected that you present the main content of each chapter. Additionally it is highly welcome if you also present current research on each respective chapter (at least one or two papers). Therefore the following additional sources should be used:

•     literature cited in the footnotes by each individual chapter
•     current empirical research (for Austria, the EU or/and globally) if available

The final exam is scheduled for:

Note: If COVID-19 will prohibit an exam with mandatory attendance on Campus I will offer oral exams only.

Contents of the the book can be found here. Actually we are 19 students for 7 chapters. Chapters will be provided by a group of two or three. Please look at the contents of the book. Then chose your (three) prefered topics (by rank) and your associate, complete the excel-file and provide me your choice by mail: altzing@wu.ac.at until 8 December. We will discuss details on that issue in the 1st unit on 1st December.

Participants should:

•     gain an overview of the most important aspects of the current distributional policy discussion
•     learn and understand important theoretical concepts of income and wealth distribution
•     get an overview on empirical studies of income and wealth distributions (global, Europe, USA, Austria)

Attendance and active participation is mandatory for all units. (TEAMS provides attandance lists automatically).

Presence is mandatory in all units.

Participants will present chapter 4-10 of the book in groups of two or three.

In the last unit there will be a final exam.

Subject matter:

• Chap.1-10 (p.1-280)  and 'The Way Forward' (p.301-308)
• Slides provided by W.A.

• oral exam: 40%
• lessons learned: 10%
• written seminar paper: 20%
• presentation of the paper: 20%
• participation in class: 10%

• basic knowledge in micro and macro

• (strong) interest in distributional issues

Homepage

altzing@wu.ac.at

Office hours: Monday 2-3 pm. (Please make an appointment in advance!)

You may also visit our Research Institute "Economics of Inequality" (where you can find a lot of additional materials on inequality).