Distinguished Lecture: Professor Thomas Piketty on “Rising Inequality and Globalisation”
Distinguished Lecture: Professor Thomas Piketty on “Rising Inequality and Globalisation”
Professor Thomas Piketty, world-leading economist and author of the best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), gave a lecture on the increasing threat of rising inequality and wealth disparity amid globalisation on the campus of The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) today (5 October).
Professor Piketty’s talk kicked off EdUHK’s Distinguished Lecture Series in French Culture and Education organised jointly with the French Consulate-General. This high-level talk was sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.
Mr Antony Leung Kam-chung, Convenor of the Big Education Platform, Mr Leong Cheung, Executive Director of Charities and Community at The Hong Kong Jockey Club, and Professor Lui Tai-lok, Vice President (Research and Development) joined the ensuing panel discussion and question-and-answer session, making reference to the local context. The talk was well-attended by different sectors of the community, including government officials, consuls general, representatives from the think-tanks and NGOs, and academics specialising in the fields, as well as EdUHK staff and students.
In his opening remarks, EdUHK President Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung said, “It is a great honour to welcome one the world’s most eminent economists to EdUHK. With the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots prevailing in different parts of the globe, Professor Piketty’s thought-provoking ideas and invaluable insights will surely stimulate an informed and forward-looking deliberation on the issue.”
Mr Alexandre Giorgini, the new Consul general of France in Hong Kong and Macau, said “I am proud that the Consulate General of France contributed to the success of this talk. It is indeed important for us to maintain the circulation of ideas between the great thinkers of our country and the prestigious institutions of Hong Kong such as EdUHK. Confronting ideas, debating and opening up new perspectives of analysis and paradigms, are at the heart of the culture of dialogue that we promote.
An internationally acclaimed economist from France, Professor Thomas Piketty is Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Professor at the Paris School of Economics and the London School of Economics. He has authored numerous articles, published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies and Explorations in Economic History, and has done major historical and theoretical work on the interplay between economic development and the distribution of income and wealth. In 2002, he received the Best Young Economist of France Award, and in 2013, he won the Yrjö Jahnsson Award. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Johannesburg and Medalla Rectoral from the University of Chile. In 2017, he advised Benoit Hamon's socialist presidential campaign in France.
