In this interview, Professor Richard Epstein assesses the impact of Thomas Piketty’s recent bestseller, Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century, on the US debate on inequality. Epstein highlights how he thinks in the long-term it will not prove persuasive and that capital markets are far more complex than Piketty implies. He also indicates that the cause of the inequality is what matters to most people. Finally, he assesses what the economic impacts of interventionist government policies might be on our economic prosperity and what policies might instead be adopted to improve living standards.

See Richard Epstein’s article on Piketty, available here.