Lucas Chancel is nominated for the 2026 Meilleur Jeune Économiste Prize

Inspired by the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal, Le Monde and the Cercle des économistes, created the prize in 2000, to highlight the work of France’s best young economists and to make better known the multiple facets of economic science. On March 30th, they announced the laureate (Adrien Bilal, Stanford) and the three nominees of their 2026 edition - Lucas Chancel (Sciences Po), Maxime Menuet (Université de Côte d'Azur), and Mathilde Muñoz (UC Berkeley).

Lucas' work focuses on inequality, particularly environmental inequality, addressing the interactions between development, resources, and social justice. His research seeks to renew the traditional analysis of global wealth inequality by setting it in an environmental and historical context. Using previously unpublished data, he and his co-authors analyse the global distribution of income and wealth (Chancel and Piketty, 2021), as well as the role of redistribution mechanisms (Blanchet, Chancel, Gethin, 2022). It also examines different contributions to climate change, particularly emissions associated with wealth (Chancel, 2022; Chancel and Rehm, 2026), as well as the effects of climate change on wealth inequality and the capacity for action among different social groups (Chancel et al., 2025). 

In his latest book Énergie et inégalités. Une histoire politique  (published by Seuil in October 2025), Lucas Chancel offers a historical perspective on the role of energy control in the formation of inequalities. This book recently received the Turgot Prize for Education and the Marcel Boiteux Prize in Energy Economics. This work has also contributed to the global debate on inequality, notably through the World Inequality Reports and the Climate Inequality Reports.

With Lucas' nomination for the 2026 "Meilleur Jeune Économiste" Prize, the Department's faculty members have been distinguished by the Cercle des économistes 14 times – seven faculty members are laureates of the prize (in 2023, Julia Cagé was the latest faculty member to win it) and another six have been nominated for it.

Congratulations to Lucas Chancel !

More about Lucas Chancel and his research

Read Le Monde's interview with Lucas Chancel (March 30th, 2026, in French)
More information about the 2026 Prize on the Cercle des Économistes' website (in French)

In addition to his faculty positions at Sciences Po, Lucas Chancel is also Co-Director of the Laboratory on Global Inequalities at the Paris School of Economics as well as a senior advisor at the European Tax Observatory. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from EHESS (2018).