Invitation to the 2026 LIS Summer Lecture on “Demographic Change, Wealth Transmission and Inequality”
LIS is happy to invite you to its 2026 Summer Lecture on “Demographic Change, Wealth Transmission and Inequality” by Prof. Frank Cowell, London School of Economics and Political Science.
The lecture will take place on Monday, June 29, 2026, from 17:30 to 18:30 [Luxembourg Local Time] at the Blackbox, Ground Floor, Maison des Sciences Humaines (MSH), 11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-Belval, Luxembourg. This is in-person event with no virtual attendance option.
Abstract
Over the last two centuries many countries have undergone substantial demographic changes that have long-term consequences for their economies. The pattern of these changes was broadly similar across countries: (1) a decrease in child mortality, (2) an increase in life expectancy, (3) a decrease in fertility. Using a model of wealth accumulation and inheritance, we look at the implication of these changes for the distribution of wealth. It turns out that, in the context of wealth inequality, (1) is irrelevant, (2) is mildly important and (3) is hugely important, but in the opposite direction from (2).
We use two important aids in this ambitious task. First, the concept of an equilibrium distribution helps to describe the complexity of what is happening in a wealth-inequality story that is driven by inheritance. Second, the discussion is based on the outcome of a giant real-life experiment on a population with over a billion people.
Bio
Frank Cowell is is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a leading international expert in the fields of income distribution, inequality, poverty measurement, taxation, and welfare economics. His research interests focus on the underlying principles of inequality measurement and its relation to welfare economics, as well as distributional analysis, and information theory. He has published several books at Cambridge University Press, and various research articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Economic Surveys, Social Choice and Welfare, and Research on Economic Inequality.
Registration
You can register via this link.