LSE International Inequalities Institute

04/06/2026

📢 We are excited to announce the launch of the African Inequality Review in partnership with the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research, UNU-WIDER and World Bank Group.

“At a time of rising global fragmentation, fiscal pressure, and uncertainty, African governments face increasingly difficult choices about how to protect vulnerable groups, expand opportunity and sustain inclusive development.”

In that context, the African Inequality Review (AIR) sets out to generate new, comparable evidence on inequality across Africa, and connect that evidence to policy decision-making processes, write Andrew Dabalen (World Bank), Francisco H. G. Ferreira (International Inequalities Institute), Patricia Justino and Rodrigo Oliveira (UNU-WIDER) and Murray Leibbrandt (University of Cape Town) in our latest blog post.

Read the post here: https://shorturl.at/rLbCj
Read more about the project here: https://air.wider.unu.edu/

04/06/2026

Subnational data on household welfare helps identify and monitor locations with high concentration of poverty and inequality, resulting in more efficient policy interventions.

Yet, very few global databases on poverty and inequality exist at the subnational level.

Using the World Bank’s Global Monitoring Database, this working paper present two new global datasets that focus on poverty and inequality at the subnational level: the Subnational Poverty and Inequality Database and the Global Subnational Atlas of Poverty.

🔗 https://buff.ly/APt3XHM

02/06/2026

Catch up on our seminar with Jeanne Bomare 💻️

Using the first wave of COVID-19 as a natural experiment, she identifies the scale and mechanisms of inheritance tax planning in the UK.

Part of the Inequalities Seminar Series at LSE31 March 2026Spea...

02/06/2026

The world’s richest countries consistently receive a sizeable income from the rest of the world through the international financial system – not because rich countries save more, or invest better, but because of the basic design of the international monetary system, writes Gastón Nievas of the World Inequality Lab.

For poorer countries, this hierarchy is costly. Net income outflows to richer countries are not just accounting entries – they are resources that could otherwise have been used to build schools, hospitals, transport systems or energy infrastructure. How could the international monetary system be redesigned to support a fairer, less unequal global economy?

Read the post here: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2026/06/02/does-the-design-of-the-international-monetary-system-sustain-inequality/

The world’s richest countries receive sizeable net incomes from the rest of the world. The reason? The basic structure of the international monetary system

01/06/2026

📢 Read now: The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites

This handbook offers an unprecedented global overview of how elites shape, and are shaped by, the social, political, and economic landscapes of the 21st century.

It sheds light on how the accumulation of wealth fuels intensified forms of inequality, and how elite actors continue to exercise disproportionate power across domains such as politics, consumption, culture, and social reproduction.

Read it here ⬇️

Abstract. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites offers an unprecedented global overview of how elites shape, and are shaped by, the social,

29/05/2026

Naila Kabeer has been selected as a finalist in the ACLS Open Access Book Prize! 🎉

Renegotiating Patriarchy is one of five books to be selected as a finalist in the Political Science category.

These prizes recognise and reward the authors and publishers of exceptional, innovative, and open humanities books published from 2019 to 2024.

🔗 https://buff.ly/4p8Sp1E

28/05/2026

We are excited to be supporting this exciting event marking 40 years of the New Economics Foundation!

To celebrate this milestone, we will look back over the last 40 years while also looking ahead to how we deliver a radically better world.

We will hear from Andy Burnham on his vision for a new localism and Professor Jayati Ghosh on how we change the rules of the global economic order.

Register now ⬇️

Join us for an evening of keynote speeches and discussion at LSE to mark the 40th anniversary of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), featuring Andy Burnham and Professor Jayati Ghosh.

27/05/2026

📢 Join us for a special seminar with Andrés Espejo on multidimensional inequality in Latin America.

Moving beyond traditional income-based approaches, he will analyse inequality through the combined dimensions of income, education, and housing, while also exploring how disadvantages accumulate within the same households.

🎟️ https://buff.ly/vCqay4y

26/05/2026

What counts as middle class?

In our next seminar, Alejandro Corvalan proposes a definition of the middle class based solely on the properties of income distribution.

🎟️ Attend in-person: https://buff.ly/DpGNjyj
💻️ Attend online: https://buff.ly/G4OoT2k

26/05/2026

The climate debate has long focused on what people buy and consume. But what about the question of who owns and controls the assets that ultimately generate emissions?

In our latest blog post, Cornelia Mohren of the World Inequality Lab argues that it’s an angle that leads directly to the problem of extreme wealth inequality. Whereas the richest 10% of the world's population account for 47% of emissions using a consumption-based approach – already a huge proportion – when looking at who owns the companies that cause emissions, that figure rises to 77%.

Read the post here: https://buff.ly/Ela8god

Wealth inequality determines who causes the climate crisis and who profits from it, so the low-carbon transition offers an opportunity to redistribute wealth