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Dr Lydia  Assouad

Dr Lydia Assouad

Assistant Professor of International Development

Department of International Development

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Languages
English, French
Key Expertise
Political economy, Development Economics, Economic history

About me

(On leave from January 2024 to June 2025)

Dr Lydia Assouad is an Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics, International Development Department and a research affiliate at the World Inequality Lab. Her research lies at the intersection of political economy, development economics and economic history, with a particular focus on the Middle East. She is interested in studying the determinants of social cohesion in societies divided along major ethno-religious, political or economic lines. In a first research agenda, she analyses the dynamics of income and wealth inequality in the region. Her second research agenda explores the consequences of nation-building policies.

Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, Quartz. She also worked as a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Middle East program) in 2019-2020.  She holds a PhD and an MA from the Paris School of Economics and a BA from Ecole Normale Supérieure and Sorbonne University in France. 

Selected publications

  • , with Facundo Alvaredo and Thomas Piketty, Review of Income and Wealth, 2019, vol. 65, p.685-711

  • , with Lucas Chancel and Marc Morgan, American Economic Association: Papers & Proceedings, 2018, vol. 108, p. 119-123

  • , with Amory Gethin, Thomas Piketty, Juliet-Nil Uraz, in Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities. A Study of 50 Democracies, 1950-2020, edited by Amory Gethin, Clara Martinez-Toledano, and Thomas Piketty, Harvard University Press, 2021

 

 

Expertise Details

Political economy of development; inequality and taxation; state and nation-building; culture and institutions; Middle East