Gabriel Zucman

international economic relations.

That's what mostly I'm interested in.

And you know, billionaires, to be honest, it's not my passion.

I think it's, you know, as I said, very important to study them given everything that's happening.

But deep down, most of my work has been more about the organization of international economic relations.

and how this changes over time and the dynamics of coordination or competition across countries, the consequences this has for inequality and so on.

Yeah, I mean, do it and be the change you want to see.

That's my advice.

And we need more people

studying inequality within academia.

And, you know, it's been some progress thanks to people like Tony Atkinson, but the movement needs to grow.

And so it's on all of us to contribute to that.

And I think this is the direction that we're taking.

It's too slow, but this is where we're going as a discipline.

Well, for me, it's part of the job of being a researcher in the social sciences, meaning there are different intellectual traditions in the social sciences, but the tradition I feel closest to is the tradition in which

The reason why we study society is not just because it exists, you know, like stars in the sky, but it's to contribute at a very modest level to improving policies and to improving society.

And so it all starts with a kind of research and establishing facts and understanding the problems.

But to me, it seems that once you've understood those problems, when you've established facts, once you've created knowledge,

It's part of the job, first of all, to contribute to disseminating that knowledge in the broader population.

Of course, it would be much more comfortable for me to just stay in the ivory tower and just have seminars with my peers and a small group of experts.