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Katharina Pistor

Katharina Pistor

New York City

Katharina Pistor, Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School, is the author of The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality.

Articles

Democracy and society | 06.10.2025

Democracy at auction

When governments start selling rights and privileges, democracy ceases to be a contract among citizens and becomes a marketplace for power

Economy and ecology | 14.08.2023

Good governance is a bad idea

The good-governance agenda has become an existential threat. Fighting climate change is about solving problems, not checking boxes

Democracy and society | 12.10.2021

The Pandora Papers and the threat to democracy

Property laws have long been written by and for the wealthy. But the more they insist that their actions are legal, the less the public trusts the law

Future of social democracy | 17.12.2019

If wealth is justified, so is a wealth tax

US billionaires have dismissed wealth-tax proposals. But they only gained wealth because of legal subsidies from the state