This article is the introductory chapter to a festschrift in honour of Geoff Hodgson. In work spanning four decades, Geoff Hodgson has made many path-breaking contributions to institutional economics, evolutionary economics, economic methodology, the history of economic thought and social theory...

This work rehearses the main themes of Piketty's book and summarizes the debate it triggered. The paper dwells on the rise in the ratio of household wealth to GDP in the rich countries since the 1980s and the role played by the build-up of saving and variations in house and financial asset...