Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is easily the most talked about economics book of the last year, if not the decade.

At its heart is the idea that capitalism contains a central contradiction: without government intervention to address the gap, the higher savings of the rich will lead to the wealthy getting ever wealthier. Nearly every major economist has weighed into debates on the book’s infamous central equation (“r>g”), data and policy
implications.

This essay collection collates some of the most thought provoking assessments of Professor Piketty’s work, and publishes some new ones for the first time.