IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/113490.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The hidden wealth of English dynasties, 1892–2016

Author

Listed:
  • Cummins, Neil

Abstract

Using individual-level records of all wealth-at-death in England from 1892 to 1992, together with new estimates of the wealth-specific rate of return on wealth, this study estimates a plausible minimum level of the amount of inherited wealth that is hidden. Elites conceal around 35 per cent of their inheritance. Among dynasties, this hidden wealth, independent of declared wealth, predicts appearance in the Offshore Leaks Database of 2013–16 and is correlated with postcode house-value in 1999 and Oxbridge attendance in 1990–2016. Accounting for hidden wealth eliminates about 28 per cent, at minimum, of the observed decline of the top 1 per cent wealth-share, at the dynastic level, over the past century. Findings show 9 077 dynasties that are hiding £8.9 billion.

Suggested Citation

  • Cummins, Neil, 2022. "The hidden wealth of English dynasties, 1892–2016," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113490, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:113490
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113490/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Allen & Robert C. Allen, 2007. "Engel`s Pause: A Pessimist`s Guide to the British Industrial Revolution," Economics Series Working Papers 315, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Robert C. Allen, 2008. "A Review of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 946-973, December.
    2. Voth, Hans-Joachim & Hersh, Jonathan, 2009. "Sweet Diversity: Colonial Goods and the Rise of European Living Standards after 1492," CEPR Discussion Papers 7386, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    hidden wealth; inequality; economic history; big data; tax evasion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ehl:lserod:113490. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.