As this podcast has highlighted before, cross-disciplinary collaboration can enrich practically any investigation into the nature of inequality. It is hard to find more compelling evidence of this than recent breakthroughs in the study of wealth inequality.

Today on the show, we speak to two experts who have made fundamental contributions to this literature, in part by drawing on physics, math, and even Renaissance-era history.

Our first guest is Alberto Bisin. Alberto is a professor of economics at New York University. He joins host Steven Durlauf to discuss how models of wealth inequality have evolved over time, as well as how recent models have successfully incorporated tools from the physics literature.

Expanding on those insights from physicists, in our second segment, Steven speaks with Jean-Philippe Bouchaud. A physicist and mathematician by training, Jean-Philippe has long been a pioneer of “econophysics,” and his work consistently reveals novel, eye-opening ways economists can supplement their work using physics and math.