Is the era of social mobility and meritocracy over – assuming it was ever real? With Old Etonians commanding all the top acting roles as well as running the country, private school looks like a passport to success for almost all the seven per cent of Britons who attend. Many young people are now only able to buy a home via the bank of mother and father. So is there any social mobility and has it really declined over time – or was it always an illusion? Does privilege matter more or less in Britain than in other countries? And are there ways to improve the life chances of young people born into less privileged backgrounds?

Panel

Simon Burgess is a professor of economics at the University of Bristol. His current research interests are in the economics of education, including the importance of teachers, pupils and schools, market structure in education, incentives and choice. He was the director of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (2004-2015) and director of the Centre for Understanding Behaviour Change (2010-2014). Follow him on Twitter: @profsimonb

Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, Chief Executive and author. She worked in BBC Radio for five years where she wrote, directed, produced and commissioned dozens of documentaries and dramas. As a television producer, she made documentary films for Timewatch, Arena, and Newsnight, among other programmes. She also produced music videos. Leaving the BBC, she ran the trade association IPPA, which represented the interests of independent film and television producers. In 1994 she returned to the United States where she served as Chief Executive Officer for InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCAST Corporation, and was named one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter, among other accolades. Her books include The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto About Business and What Really Matters, Women on Top: How Female Entrepreneurs are Changing the Rules for Business Success and Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril. Follow her on Twitter: @M_Heffernan

Paul Johnson has been director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies since 2011. He is also currently visiting professor in the Department of Economics at University College London. He has worked and published extensively on the economics of public policy. He has also worked at HM Treasury, the Department of Education and the FSA. Between 2004 and 2007 he was deputy head of the Government Economic Service.

Abigail McKnight is an associate professorial research fellow at the LSE. Her interests include inequality, the distribution of wealth, social mobility and the economics of education.

Kimberley Scharf is a professor of economics at University of Warwick, a visiting professor at the LSE and a visiting scholar at the National Audit Office. She is an editor-in-chief of International Tax and Public Finance and is an elected member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society, the RES Women’s Committee and the Board of Management of the International Institute for Public Finance.