Lucas Chancel, associate professor at Sciences Po's Center for Research on Social Inequalities, and co-director of the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics. A LECOMPTE
Lucas Chancel is one of the three economists, alongside the winner, to have been nominated for the 2026 Best Young Economist Award by a jury composed of representatives from Le Cercle des Economistes and Le Monde. The economists were selected for their dedication to building harmonious societies capable of facing present-day challenges.
What originally led you to focus on inequality?
When I was a child, my father had a rule for dividing up cake in our house: "The one who cuts doesn't choose their piece." That rule always fascinated me. It was probably my earliest reflection on inequality and what a just society might look like, even if I didn't think of it that way at the time. What rules do societies follow to organize the distribution of wealth? For whose benefit, and for what purpose? Fundamentally, that is what I am trying to answer today.
How did you combine carbon emission measurements with inequality data?
