An excuse for occupying the terrain and masking the vacuity of the content

For too long economists have sought to define themselves in terms of their supposedly scientific methods. In fact, those methods rely on an immoderate use of mathematical models, which are frequently no more than an excuse for occupying the terrain and masking the vacuity of the content.

T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century (2013), 974

Nearly one-sixth of each cohort will receive an inheritance larger than the amount the bottom half of the population earns through labour in a lifetime.

Inheritance did not come to an end: the distribution of inherited capital has changed, which is something else entirely. ... In the nineteenth century about 10% of a cohort inherited amounts greater than this [a lifetime income of those in the bottom half of income distribution]. This proportion fell to barely more than 2 percent for cohorts born in 1910-1920 and 4-5 percent for cohorts born n 1930-1950. According to my estimates, the proportion has already risen to about 12 percent of cohorts born in 1970-1980 and may well reach or exceed 15 percent for cohorts born in 2010-2020. In other words, nearly one-sixth of each cohort will receive an inheritance larger than the amount the bottom half of the population earns through labour in a lifetime.

T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century (2013), 420-1

The current prevalent fears of growing Chinese ownership are a pure fantasy

In particular, it is important to stress that the current prevalent fears of growing Chinese ownership are a pure fantasy. The wealthy countries are in fact much wealthier than they sometimes think. The total real estate and financial assets net of debt owned by European households today amount to some 70 trillion euros. By comparison the total assets of the various Chinese sovereign wealth funds plus the reserves of the Bank of China represent around 3 million euros, or less then one-twentieth of the former amount.

T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st century (2013), 463

The magnitude of the changes initiated by the French Revolution should not be overstated

The magnitude of the changes initiated by the French Revolution should not be overstated, however. Beyond the probable decrease of inequality of wealth between 1780 and 1810, followed by a gradual increase between 1810 and 1910, and especially after 1870 , the most significant fact is that inequality of capital ownership remained relatively stable at an extremely high level throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this period [in France] the top decile consistently owned 80 to 90 percent of the total wealth.

T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century (2013), 342

The most one can say is that state intervention did no harm

In fact, neither the economic liberalization that began around 1980 nor the state interventionism that began in 1945 deserves such praise or blame. France, Germany, and Japan would very likely have caught up with Britain and the United States following their collapse of 1914-11945 regardless of what policies they adopted (I say this with only slight exaggeration). The most one can say is that state intervention did no harm. Similarly, once these countries had attained the global technological frontier, it is hardly surprising that they ceased to grow more rapidly than Britain and the United States or that growth rates in all the wealthy countries more or less equalized... Broadly speaking the US and British policies of economic liberalization appear to have had little effect on this simple reality, since they neither increased growth nor decreased it.

T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century (2013), 98-99