Embedded wealth inequalities in societies are one of the factors that can help explain why government interventions fail to reduce inequality despite introducing progressive policies.
Such wealth inequalities interact with associated drivers of inequality, such as the power of capital and global elites; and dominant narratives (and corresponding policies) that justify and perpetuate inequality. The ACEIR teams work with researcher partners who are leading in the field of wealth and elites research to contribute to an understanding of the role of wealth in developing contexts.
Projects and studies
Climate shocks and household assets and welfare
Household assets can be used as a framework for understanding resilience to climate change shocks, illustrating how varying levels of assets result in different welfare outcomes when households experience climate shocks. Such analyses were undertaken for Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa as part of the multidisciplinary research project on transforming social inequalities through inclusive climate action (TSITICA). This project investigated how climate change action can be socially transformative in these three contrasting African countries. Read more
Politicians, policies and the reproduction of wealth
Studies in different Western countries have documented that policy output tends to align better with the preferences of richer citizens than poorer ones. To what extent there is a pro-wealth bias in policymaking and what might drive it are hotly debated though. Building on these strands of literature, this project studies a novel mechanism behind the reproduction of wealth: that politicians contribute to the reproduction of wealth by adopting policies biased towards the wealthy; and that they do so by virtue of being connected to pro-wealth interests through their social and economic characteristics. This research is a Global North–South collaboration between universities from Brazil, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom). Read more