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Thank you Frances. He was a great man as well as a great economist.

Nice article. Of course Sir Tony Atkinson is most well known for his work with Stiglitz on non-linear taxation, which has actually been quite significant both for actual policymaking and for more theoretical debates, thanks to the subsequent work of scholars who have been heavily influenced by him, most obviously Emmanuel Saez. So, it does not seem entirely fair to view his argoments as ultimately pointless and as having "fallen upon deaf ears"!

Anon - thanks for your kind words. I agree with you about the tremendous influence of Atkinson's work on inequality and wealth measurement, optimal taxation - indeed the entire field of public finance. When I wrote the passage you picked up on, I had in mind the book Inequality- if you haven't read it already, I'd highly recommend it. It's a book written by someone under a death sentence, who knew he had one last chance to tell it as it is. Even if no one was going to like his call for, e.g., greater union power, inheritance taxes, a 65% top marginal income tax rate, etc!

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