Richard Blundell, University College London

Inequality, Redistribution and the Labour Market

Abstract

The structure of work and of families has changed over the last three decades, with growing earnings inequality driven, in part, by adverse labour market ‘shocks’ for the lower educated.  In the decade after the financial crisis, the overall squeeze on living standards brought these inequalities into sharper focus.  It is unlikely we can address all the concerns about low wages and earnings inequality through traditional tax and welfare policies alone. The challenge is how best to balance tax and welfare-benefit policy with other policies such as human capital policies, minimum wages and labour market regulation. This presentation will focus on the key role played by the poor overall wage progression for lower and middle educated workers in understanding earnings inequality and for designing policy responses. Drawing on new results from panel data on households and on firms, it will highlight the role of labour market attachment, part-time work, soft skills and training.

Professor Sir Richard Blundell CBE FBA holds the David Ricardo Chair of Political Economy at University College London where he was appointed Professor of Economics in 1984, and was Chair of the Department 1988 - 1992. He is a graduate of the University of Bristol and London School of Economics. He was awarded a Knighthood in the 2014 New Year Honours list for his services to Economics and Social Science. He was awarded a CBE in 2006. Since 1986 he has been Research Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), where he is also Director of the  ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy.  He was awarded a Leverhulme Personal Professorship in 1998. He has held visiting professor positions at UBC, MIT and Berkeley.

He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland; the Norwegian School of Economics, NHH, Bergen, Norway; and the University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany; University della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano; University of Bristol; and University of Venice, Ca' Foscari.

He was President of the European Economics Association. He was President of the Econometric Society in 2006. He was President of the Society of Labor Economics in 2010. He was President of the Royal Economic Society 2011-2013.

In 1995 he was awarded the Yrjö Jahnsson Prize, given every two years to the best young economist in Europe (aged under 45), for his work in microeconometrics and the analysis of labour supply, welfare reform and consumer behaviour. In 2000 he was awarded the Econometric Society Frisch Prize Medal for his paper 'Estimating Labour Supply Responses using Tax Reforms'. In 2008 he was the recipient of the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize given to a high level economist whose research combines both the theoretical and applied aspects of economics. He was awarded the CES-Ifo Prize in 2010 and the Sandmo Prize in 2011. He was the 2011 Downing Fellow at University of Melbourne. He was recipient of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics in 2012. He was awarded the 2015 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Prize in Economics. He was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Economics in 2016.

You can read more about Richard Blundell here

CEBI contact: Søren Leth-Petersen