Course Description

This concentration area will cover a key arena of contemporary debates on the role of inequality for social and political cohesion, economic and social sustainability. The concentration area runs over two semesters, with a two-hour unit running in summer semesters followed by four-hour units running in winter semesters. Although the two units are assessed separately, they should be interpreted as an integrated unit where lessons from the two-hour unit carry over to the four-hour unit course.

In this first semester, the concentration area will start with introducing students to standard work on earnings inequality but then move quickly beyond a narrow focus on individual or household income to various forms of group inequality (gender, ethnic, territories, neighborhoods) and non-monetary forms of inequality, situated in discussions of power relations, the decisive role of institutions and then moving to examining the intersections of colonialism, gender, ecology, and economics, focusing on global inequalities.

In keeping with the requirements of a socio-economic approach, this requires a trans-disciplinary focus drawing not only on economics but also on sociology, political science, philosophy, feminist theory and geography.

·         Acquire a profound understanding of the political economy of inequality

·         Analysis of economic inequality, and economic policies regarding inequality

·         Critical reflection of core concepts and themes within the inequality topic

·         Understand inequality as multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary subject

Students may miss one session without penalty

Seminar discussions

• Class participation 20%
• Short written assignments 30%
• Individual research idea : 10%, deadline : May 20, 2025
• Presentation of group research proposal : 5%, June 13, 2024
• Group proposal 35%. Deadline, June 30

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