Economics serving society

Sir Anthony B. Atkinson, 1944-2017

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It is with much sadness that we have learned of the death of Anthony Atkinson. A great specialist in the analysis of inequality, and together with several PSE researchers, author of seminal works, Tony Atkinson paid us the honour and the pleasure of regular visits, the most significant of which was his year-long stay on Jourdan campus in 2006 as visiting professor, in the Blaise Pascal chair.
His contributions to economics combined, in especially relevant ways, theoretical approaches and empirical analysis. All those who had the chance to exchange with him keep a memory of a colleague whose critiques and suggestions, as profound as they were, were always expressed gently. His involvement, with Thomas Piketty, in the establishment of detailed data bases on income, then on wealth around the world, was decisive in the progressive development of the World Wealth and Income Database, located at PSE and open to all the world’s researchers. Tony Atkinson was a member of the Scientific Council of PSE from 2006 to 2009, and member of the Strategic Orientation Committee of PSL. More than a colleague, today PSE mourns the loss of an old friend.

Pierre-Yves Geoffard, Director of the PSE

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