Lucas Chancel

Lucas Chancel is an economist. His work focuses on the study of economic inequality, its interactions with unsustainable development patterns, and on the implementation of social and ecological policies. His recent projects focused on the trends and determinants of income and wealth inequality (both past and present) in rich and developing countries as well as at the global level, based on the use of tax data, household surveys, national accounts and rich lists. He also seeks to better understand the trends and drivers of pollution inequalities within countries and between them.

Lucas is Associate Professor at Sciences Po, member of the Centre for Research on social InequalitieS and the Department of Economics. He is also Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics (PSE), Senior Advisor at the European Tax Observatory. He was a visiting Senior Scholar at the London School of Economics (2021) and at the Harvard Kennedy School (2022).

• Eulalie Saïsset, Planifier la sobriété foncière à l'échelle locale : analyse des conflits d’usage des sols et des inégalités sous-jacentes
• Philipp Bothe, Essays the distribution of well-being, PSE
• Yannic Rehm, Inequality, incidence and taxation – three essays on the economics of carbon emissions, PSE

DERNIERS ARTICLES - LATEST PAPERS

• 2025 (with Cornelia Mohren, Philipp Bothe & Gregor Semieniuk), Climate change and the global distribution of wealth, Nature Climate Change, published March 3rd 2025. Preprint
• 2023 (with Gregor Semieniuk, Eulalie Saïsset, Philip B. Holden, Jean-François Mercure and Neil R. Edwards), "Potential pension fund losses should not deter high-income countries from bold climate action", Joule, vol. 7, n° 7, p. 1383-1387.
• 2023 (with Denis Cogneau, Amory Gethin, Alix Myczkowski and Anne-Sophie Robilliard), "Income inequality in Africa, 1990–2019: Measurement, patterns, determinants", World Development, vol. 163, 106162.
• 2022, "Global Carbon Inequality over 1990-2019”, Nature Sustainability, vol. 5, p. 931-938.
• 2022 (with T. Blanchet, A. Gethin), “Why is Europe More Equal than the United States?”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics", vol. 14, n° 4, p. 488-518.
• 2021, (with T. Piketty), “Global income inequality 1820-2020: The Persistence and Mutation of Extreme Inequality”,  Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 19, n° 6, p. 3025-3062.  [Prepublication in Open Access] 

OUVRAGES ET RAPPORTS - BOOKS AND REPORTS

• 2023 (with Philipp Bothe and Tancrède Voituriez), Climate Inequality Report 2023: Fair taxes for a sustainable future in the Global South, World Inequality Lab, 149 p.
• 2022, World Inequality Report 2022, Harvard University Press (lead author & coordinator)
   International editions (France, Seuil). Online version: https://wir2022.wid.world/
• 2020, Unsustainable inequalities: social justice and the environment, Harvard University Press.
  International editions (France, Les Petits Matins ; China, Zejiang People’s Publishing House ; Korea, Nike Books ; Spain, FUHEM)
• 2019 (with Manon Bouju, Stéphanie Hennette, Thomas Piketty, Guillaume Sacriste, Antoine Vauchez), Traité de Démocratisation de l’Europe, Seuil.
• 2018, World Inequality Report 2018, Harvard University Press (editor & general coordinator) 
  Other editions: published in more than 10 other languages, Online version: https://wir2018.wid.world/

CHAPITRES D'OUVRAGES - BOOK CHAPTERS

• 2024 (avec Theresa Neef, Panayiotis Nicolaides, Thomas Piketty, & Gabriel Zucman), « Des sanctions contre les oligarques à un cadastre financier européen », In: Éric Monnet & Antoine Vauchez (dir.), L’Europe : du marché à la puissance publique ?, PUF/Vie des idées.

WORKING PAPERS

• 2024 (with Nitin Kumar Bharti, Thomas Piketty and Anmol Somanchi), Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj, World Inequality Lab, WP n° 2024/09, March, 85 p.