LSE International Inequalities Institute

08/09/2026

What responsibility do British institutions – from private companies to the UK Government and the monarchy – have for slavery, colonialism, and their continuing effects?

In any public inquiry into reparatory justice, Afrikan Heritage Communities cannot be treated merely as witnesses who supply testimony *after* the terms of inquiry have already been set. They must shape the mandate, evidence processes, interpretation of findings, recommendations and implementation, write Esther Xosei, Daniel Kofi Davidson, Nicola Frith, Florence Mbahupa Handura, Asha Herten-Crabb, Priya Lukka, Sai Murray, and Eleanor Shearer:

“The question is not only what forms of repair are owed, but who has the authority to define repair, by whom it is owed, to whom it is owed, and through what mechanisms of accountability.”

Read the post here: https://buff.ly/S0AjL2V

07/09/2026

📢 "Inequality is a policy choice, and its extremes can be reversed"

Professor Larry Kramer and Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz call on Andy Burnham to address global inequality by backing an International Panel on Inequality—a proposal supported by leading academics from the III and around the world.

Read their article in Prospect magazine ⬇️
https://buff.ly/N5vQKOy

Inequality is a policy choice, and its extremes can be reversed

02/09/2026

In the world's richest countries, 80-90% of the remaining gap in earnings between men and women can be traced to one event: the arrival of a first child, argues Camille Landais, Director of STICERD at LSE. Can this gender pay gap be closed?

The answer depends on whether the parental burden held by women is a biological necessity or a more malleable social norm:

“The intensive, mother-centred model of childcare is often treated as a timeless feature of family life… [but] the evidence suggests it is a comparatively recent development, tied to a specific stage of economic transformation rather than to human nature per se.”

Read the post here: https://buff.ly/Qt37PuX

In the world's richest countries, 80-90% of the remaining pay gap between men and women can be traced to the arrival of a first child. Can this gap be closed?

01/09/2026

📢 Register now for the 2nd Michael Lipton memorial lecture with Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira at the Institute of Development Studies

In this lecture, he argues that relative measures of intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity are closely related approaches to quantifying the inheritability of inequality. He reviews both strands of literature in the context of Latin America, examining persistence in both income and educational attainment across generations.

📆 17 November 2026, 3-5pm

https://buff.ly/2X35EBt

Join the Michael Lipton memorial lecture delivered by Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira of the London School of Economics (LSE) who will speak on Inequality and Inclusive Growth.

28/08/2026

Art is often seen as playing a supporting or descriptive role for research in the social sciences.

In a new blog post for LSE Impact, Annalena Oppel and Michael Vaughan reflect on how bringing the two together can place “research facts” and “artistic values” into new and productive relationships.

https://buff.ly/RlQK1k1

Can bringing art and social science into dialogue place “research facts” and “artistic values” into new and productive relationships?

26/08/2026

The youth protests sweeping India began with demands for resignations but quickly expanded into a wider movement, write Harsh*ta Sinha and Ritika Arora-Kukreja.

The protestors are demanding that the ruling BJP give answers to difficult questions. When did democratic citizenship become so fragile that protests by the young had to be met with violence? And what does it mean to be a citizen in a state that positions itself as a democracy, yet remains distant from the grievances of its own citizens?

Read the post here: https://buff.ly/jCxgMBo

Using Gen-Z lingo, music and memes, the youth protests sweeping India are questioning what it means to practice citizenship in the world's largest democracy

25/08/2026

Capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty – but it has also produced extraordinary concentrations of wealth and power. How is it that both of these statements are true?

In our latest blog post, Séamus A. Power argues that understanding economic inequality requires taking both stories seriously, before outlining a third story that is grounded in the pursuit and achievement of human capabilities.

Read the post here: https://buff.ly/Iv7NcmP

Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty. But it has also produced extraordinary inequality of wealth and power. How do we reconcile these two statements?

19/08/2026

📢 Call for papers: Fiscal policy for sustainable development in the Global South

On SOUTHMOD’s 10th anniversary, the III and UNU-WIDER are organising an academic workshop on fiscal policy in developing countries. The event will highlight innovative methodological developments in distributive fiscal analysis and promote dialogue between academia and policymakers in the Global South.

📆 Apply by 20 September 2026

🔗 https://buff.ly/8IGUTJQ

18/08/2026

We tend to see poor people who inject drugs in one of two ways: self-destructive, or passive victims of a broken system.

Sarah Brothers, over seven years of fieldwork, found something else: skilled, self-taught practitioners – most often women – who cared for each other with expertise and a demanding ethic, in conditions that gave them almost nothing to work with.

“Their care was not always warm… hit doctors could dislike people they injected for years. But they would still stay to be sure the person didn’t stop breathing.”

Read the post here: https://buff.ly/3bNDfCa

We see the very poor who inject drugs as either self-destructive or as passive victims of a broken system. But Sarah Brothers found something else.

13/08/2026

Extreme heat is often framed as a public health threat – but its impacts are deeply unequal.

As the UK's fifth heatwave this year peaks, Philip Broadbent argues that heat deaths in England and Wales are rooted in housing inequality. Poorer households, renters, older people and residents of dense urban areas are most exposed to overheating homes. As heatwaves intensify, the problems of extreme heat should be treated as a year-round housing and inequality crisis, not just a seasonal weather event.

Read the blog post here: https://buff.ly/EZvgD3i

Extreme heat is a public health issue that's rooted in housing inequality. Poorer households, renters, older people and those in urban areas are most exposed