Tony Atkinson

Sir Tony Atkinson CBE FBA
Born	Anthony Barnes Atkinson (1944-09-04)4 September 1944 United Kingdom
Died	1 January 2017(2017-01-01) (aged 72)
Nationality	British
Academic career
Field	Economics of income distribution, poverty, micro-economics
Institution	Nuffield College, Oxford London School of Economics
School or tradition	Neo-Keynesian economics
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Influences	James Meade
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Sir Anthony Barnes "Tony" Atkinson, CBE, FBA (4 September 1944 – 1 January 2017) was a British economist, Senior Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics.

A student of James Meade, Atkinson virtually single-handedly established the modern British field of inequality and poverty studies. He worked on inequality and poverty for over four decades.

Education and career

Atkinson attended Cranbrook School. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1966 with a first-class degree. He cited his interest in inequality as beginning from volunteering in a German hospital in the 1960s.

He served as Warden of Nuffield College from 1994 to 2005. Before that he held positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, the London School of Economics, the University of Essex and the University of Oxford.

Work

Atkinson's work was predominantly on income distributions. There is an inequality measure named after him: the Atkinson index. In a joint article with Joseph Stiglitz, he laid one of the cornerstones for the theory of Optimal Taxation.

In his 2015 publication entitled Inequality: What Can Be Done?, he "called for robust taxation of the rich whom he reckons have got off easily over the last generation."

He recommends government intervention in markets such as employment guarantees and wage controls to influence the redistribution of economic rewards. He traced the history of inequality coining the phrase the "Inequality Turn" to describe the period when household inequality began to rise around 1980. From the 1980s on men and women "tended to marry those who earned like themselves" with rich women marrying rich men. As more women joined the workforce inequality increased.

Atkinson examined how the wealthy disproportionately influence public policy and influence governments to implement policies that protect wealth. He presented a set of policies regarding technology, employment, social security, the sharing of capital, and taxation that could shift the inequality in income distribution in developed countries. He also advocates the introduction of a basic income.

Influences

Atkinson, who worked on inequality and poverty for more than four decades, was a mentor to Thomas Piketty (author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century); they worked together on building an historical database on top incomes. Piketty described him as "the godfather of historical studies of income and wealth."

Membership and honours

He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1984, a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1974, Honorary Member of the American Economic Association in 1985 and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.

He was President of the Econometric Society in 1988. He was knighted in 2000 and made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2001. He was the first person to be honoured with the A.SK Social Science Award by the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB Social Science Center in Berlin) in 2007. He was president of the board of the Luxembourg Income Study, having advised on its creation in the 1980s.

Atkinson was married to Judith Mandeville, who he met at Cambridge, and had three children.

Selected bibliography

Books

• Atkinson, Anthony B.; Harrison, Allan J. (1978). Distribution of personal wealth in Britain. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521217354.
• Atkinson, Anthony B.; Stiglitz, Joseph E. (1980). Lectures on public economics. London New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co. ISBN 9780070841055.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (1983). The economics of inequality. Oxford Oxfordshire New York: Clarendon Press Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198772088.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (1995). Incomes and the welfare state: essays on Britain and Europe. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521557962.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (1996). Public economics in action: the basic income/flat tax proposal. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198292166.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (1999). The economic consequences of rolling back the welfare state. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262011716.
• Atkinson, Anthony B.; Bourguignon, François (2000). Handbook of income distribution. Amsterdam New York: Elvesier. ISBN 9780444816313.
• Atkinson, Anthony B; Stern, Nicholas H.; Glennerster, Howard (2000). Putting economics to work: volume in honour of Michio Morishima. Vol. 22. London: London School of Economics and Political Science, and the STICERD – Suntory-Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines. ISBN 9780753013991.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2004). New sources of development finance. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199278558.
• Atkinson, Anthony B.; Piketty, Thomas (2007). Top incomes over the Twentieth Century: a contrast between Continental European and English-speaking countries. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199286881.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2008). The changing distribution of earnings in OECD countries. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199532438.
• Atkinson, Anthony B.; Piketty, Thomas (2010). Top incomes: a global perspective. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199286898.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2014). Public economics in an age of austerity. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138018150.
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2014). Inequality: What Can Be Done?. Harvard University Press. p. 384. ISBN 9780674504769.

Chapters in books

• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2002), "Globalization and the European welfare state at the opening and the closing of the twentieth century", in Kierzkowski, Henryk (ed.), Europe and globalization, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 249–273, ISBN 9780333998397
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2008), "Concentration among the rich", in Davies, James B (ed.), Personal wealth from a global perspective, Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 64–89, ISBN 9780199548897
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2009), "Welfare economics and giving for development", in Kanbur, Ravi; Basu, Kaushik (eds.), Arguments for a better world: essays in honor of Amartya Sen | Volume I: Ethics, welfare, and measurement, Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 489–500, ISBN 9780199239115

Journal articles

• Atkinson, Anthony B. (2003). "Income inequality in OECD countries: data and explanations". CESifo Economic Studies (Munich). 49 (4). Oxford University Press: 479–513. doi:10.1093/cesifo/49.4.479. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (October 2003). "Social Europe and social science". Social Policy and Society. 2 (4). Cambridge University Press: 261–72. doi:10.1017/S1474746403001428. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (March 2007). "The long run earnings distribution in five countries: "remarkable stability", U, V or W?". Review of Income and Wealth. 53 (1). Wiley: 1–24. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4991.2007.00215.x. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Pdf)
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (October 2009). "Economics as a moral science". Economica, special issue – edited by Amos Witztum and Frank Cowell. 76 (s1). Wiley: 791–804. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.2009.00788.x. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Atkinson, Anthony B. (May 2011). "The restoration of welfare economics". American Economic Review. 101 (3). American Economic Association: 157–61. doi:10.1257/aer.101.3.157. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

See also

• Atkinson–Stiglitz theorem

External links

• Nuffield College official webpage
• LSE Homepage
• Lecture: Income Distribution and Social Change after 50 years on YouTube (video)
• The Chartbook of Income Inequality from INET at the University of Oxford by Atkinson, Salvatore Morelli, and Max Roser (NOTE: This source presents data about long-run changes in the income distribution for 25 countries over the course of more than one hundred years.)
• The World Top Income Database by Atkinson, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Facundo Alvaredo