IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v21y2009i8p1111-1124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The global pattern of household wealth

Author

Listed:
  • James B. Davies

    (University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada)

  • Susanna Sandström

    (UN World Food Programme, Rome, Italy)

  • Anthony Shorrocks

    (UNU-WIDER, Henskinki, Finland)

  • Edward Wolff

    (New York University, NY, USA)

Abstract

We provide the first estimate of the level and distribution of global household wealth. The level of assets and debts for 39 countries are measured using household balance sheet and survey data centred on the year 2000. Average wealth holdings are imputed to countries lacking direct evidence. Microdata on household wealth distribution are assembled for 20 countries. Wealth inequality is imputed to other countries from the observed relation between wealth and income distribution in these countries. We find that the top 10 per cent owned 85 per cent of world wealth, and the Gini coefficient was 0.893, greater than that for the global distribution of income. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • James B. Davies & Susanna Sandström & Anthony Shorrocks & Edward Wolff, 2009. "The global pattern of household wealth," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 1111-1124.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:21:y:2009:i:8:p:1111-1124
    DOI: 10.1002/jid.1648
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jid.1648
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jid.1648?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James B. Davies & Susanna Sandström & Anthony Shorrocks & Edward N. Wolff, 2007. "Estimating the Level and Distribution of Global Household Wealth," University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20075, University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. F. Clementi & M. Gallegati & G. Kaniadakis, 2012. "A generalized statistical model for the size distribution of wealth," Papers 1209.4787, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2012.
    2. Mario Holzner & Stefan Jestl, 2015. "Of proprietors and proletarians," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 141, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    3. Jaqueson K Galimberti & Stefan Pichler & Regina Pleninger, 2023. "Measuring Inequality Using Geospatial Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 37(4), pages 549-569.
    4. Stefan Jestl & Mario Holzner & Sebastian Leitner, 2015. "Immobilienvermögen und Hypothekarverschuldung der Haushalte im Europavergleich," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 41(1), pages 49-70.
    5. Ben Crow & Nichole Zlatunich & Brian Fulfrost, 2009. "Mapping global inequalities: Beyond income inequality to multi-dimensional inequalities," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 1051-1065.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brinca, Pedro & Holter, Hans A. & Krusell, Per & Malafry, Laurence, 2016. "Fiscal multipliers in the 21st century," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 53-69.
    2. Pirmin Fessler & Martin Schürz, 2013. "Cross-Country Comparability of the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 2, pages 29-50.
    3. Olympia Bover, 2010. "Wealth Inequality And Household Structure: U.S. Vs. Spain," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(2), pages 259-290, June.
    4. Davies, James B. & Sandstrom, Susanna & Shorrocks, Anthony & Wolff, Edward N., 2006. "The World Distribution of Household Wealth," Conference papers 331490, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    5. Thomas Goda, 2014. "Global trends in relative and absolute wealth concentrations," Documentos de Trabajo CIEF 10897, Universidad EAFIT.
    6. Popov, Vladimir, 2014. "Socialism is dead, long live socialism!," MPRA Paper 54294, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Popov, Vladimir, 2019. "Billionaires, millionaires, inequality, and happiness," MPRA Paper 94081, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Popov, Vladimir, 2023. "Why the rich and the poor value freedom and equality differently," MPRA Paper 116563, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Thomas Goda, 2018. "The global concentration of wealth [Persistence of power, elites, and institutions]," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 95-115.
    10. Anthony F. Shorrocks & Guanghua Wan, 2008. "Ungrouping Income Distributions: Synthesising Samples for Inequality and Poverty Analysis," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-16, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Popov, Vladimir, 2018. "Paradoxes of Happiness: Why People Feel More Comfortable With High Inequalities And High Murder Rates?," MPRA Paper 87118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Polterovich, Victor & Popov, Vladimir & Tonis, Alexander, 2009. "Instability of Democracy as Resource Curse," MPRA Paper 22069, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:21:y:2009:i:8:p:1111-1124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.