Estimation of the Value, Distribution and Concentration of Wealth in Bulgaria, 1995-2020

This paper estimates private wealth in Bulgaria using different official sources of macroeconomic and survey data. Due data availability reasons, the 1995-2020 period is analysed. Net wealth is calculated by capitalising incorporated and non-incorporated entrepreneurs’ income, combining it with administrative and survey sources of data on real and financial wealth and liabilities. The net wealth of Bulgarian households is rising in nominal EUR and PPP terms, so is inequality. From the end of 1995 until the end of 2020 net wealth of Bulgarian households (individuals) has grown eightfold, from EUR 41.7 bln to EUR 381.8 bln, while per adult and per capita measures have grown tenfold, from 8.5 thousand euro to 92.2 thousand euro and from 4.9 to 55.2 thousand euro respectively. The geometric average rate of growth (CAGR) amounts to 9.3% yearly for the net wealth, 10% for the net wealth per adult and 10.1% for the net wealth per capita. For the period under review, the bottom half of individuals own less than 5.1% of net wealth on average, while the top decile and percentile own 65.3% and 10.6% of total net wealth on average, respectively, while the Gini coefficient grows to 0.75 at the end of the period but accepting values between 0.63 and 0.81 over the analysed period.