IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ico/wpaper/157.html

Idiosyncrasies of the oligarchic elite: On the political economy of wealth concentration in Austria

Author

Listed:
  • Stephan Puehringer

    (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria)

  • Matthias Aistleitner

    (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria)

  • Lukas Cserjan

    (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria)

  • Sophie Hieselmayr

    (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria)

  • Jan Weber

Abstract

The increasing concentration of income and wealth on the national and international level is a topic that has received increased attention both in social science research as well as public policy debates. While data availability is a well-known and often-lamented problem in wealth studies, especially the group of HNW-households remains largely unexplored. In this study, we aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the impact of HNW-households and their networks on current wealth distributions. Based on an extensive data set of company ownerships of a sample of the 62 wealthiest Austrian HNW-households, we apply a social network analysis of two-mode networks (institutions and persons) to highlight networks of corporate ownership and (indirect) control. An overall finding is that numerous HNW-networks involve a multitude of legal entities, creating complex and opaque control structures that complicates the tracing of economic ownership. Besides this, our findings show several idiosyncrasies of the super-rich.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephan Puehringer & Matthias Aistleitner & Lukas Cserjan & Sophie Hieselmayr & Jan Weber, 2025. "Idiosyncrasies of the oligarchic elite: On the political economy of wealth concentration in Austria," ICAE Working Papers 157, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ico:wpaper:157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jku.at/fileadmin/gruppen/108/ICAE_Working_Papers/wp-157.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2025
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wildauer, Rafael & Kapeller, Jakob, 2022. "Tracing the invisible rich: A new approach to modelling Pareto tails in survey data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    2. Saila Stausholm & Javier Garcia-Bernardo, 2024. "Unfollow the money: mapping the micro agents of international tax," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 1197-1219, July.
    3. Gregory Clark, 2015. "The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 10181-2, December.
    4. Pistor Katharina, 2021. "The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality – Core Themes," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-7, March.
    5. Ilona M. Otto & Kyoung Mi Kim & Nika Dubrovsky & Wolfgang Lucht, 2019. "Shift the focus from the super-poor to the super-rich," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(2), pages 82-84, February.
    6. Pirmin Fessler & Peter Lindner & Martin Schürz, 2019. "Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey 2017 for Austria," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 18/Q4, pages 36-66.
    7. Pirmin Fessler & Peter Lindner & Martin Schürz, 2019. "Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey 2017 for Austria," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q4/18, pages 36-66.
    8. Hermut Kormann, 2017. "Governance des Familienunternehmens," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-658-18763-7, January.
    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. Stephan Pühringer & Matthias Aistleitner & Lukas Cserjan & Sophie Hieselmayr & Jakob Weber, 2024. "Idiosyncrasies of the superrich: On the political economy of wealth concentration in Austria," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 254, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    2. Martin Halla & Andrea Weber, 2024. "Persistent low inequality despite compositional shifts in Austria," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 269-283, September.
    3. Marcel Fafchamps & Julien Labonne, 2017. "Do Politicians’ Relatives Get Better Jobs? Evidence from Municipal Elections," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 268-300.
    4. Ricard Grebol & Margarita Machelett & Jan Stuhler & Ernesto Villanueva, 2025. "Assortative Mating, Inequality, and Rising Educational Mobility in Spain," Papers 2512.22848, arXiv.org.
    5. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Waldenström, Daniel, 2018. "Inheritance and wealth inequality: Evidence from population registers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 17-30.
    6. Pottier, Antonin & Combet, Emmanuel & Cayla, Jean-Michel & de Lauretis, Simona & Nadaud, Franck, "undated". "Who emits CO2 ? Landscape of ecological inequalities in France from a critical perspective," FEEM Working Papers 311053, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    7. Tobias Angel & Alexandre Berthe & Valeria Costantini & Mariagrazia D’Angeli, 2024. "How the nature of inequality reduction matters for CO2 emissions," Working Papers 2024.14, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    8. Sebastian Klüsener & Martin Dribe & Francesco Scalone, 2016. "Spatial and social distance in the fertility transition: Sweden 1880-1900," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2016-009, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    9. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Pinger, Pia R., 2016. "Transgenerational effects of childhood conditions on third generation health and education outcomes," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 103-120.
    10. Berthold, Norbert & Gründler, Klaus, 2014. "On the empirics of social mobility: A macroeconomic approach," Discussion Paper Series 128, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    11. Giacomin Favre & Joël Floris & Ulrich Woitek, 2018. "Intergenerational mobility in the 19th century: micro-level evidence from the city of Zurich," ECON - Working Papers 274, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Beine, Michel & Peracchi, Silvia & Zanaj, Skerdilajda, 2023. "Ancestral diversity and performance: Evidence from football data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 193-214.
    13. Gielen, Anne C. & Webbink, Dinand, 2023. "Unexpected Colonial Returns: Self-Selection and Economic Integration of Migrants over Multiple Generations," IZA Discussion Papers 16065, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri, 2024. "Movilidad social en la educación: el caso de la Universidad de los Andes en Colombia entre 1949 y 2018," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 61, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    15. Mazza, Jan, 2025. "Inheritance Expectations, Dynastic Altruism, and Education," SocArXiv 6dzwq_v1, Center for Open Science.
    16. Wollburg,Philip Randolph & Hallegatte,Stephane & Mahler,Daniel Gerszon, 2023. "The Climate Implications of Ending Global Poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10318, The World Bank.
    17. Sotiris Kampanelis & Aldo Elizalde, 2024. "Lynching and economic opportunities: Evidence from the US South," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 977-1003, November.
    18. Luca Spinesi, "undated". "How innovation and heterogenous human capital shape wealth and income inequality," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0290, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    19. Bengtsson, Erik & Missiaia, Anna & Olsson, Mats & Svensson, Patrick, 2017. "The Wealth of the Richest: Inequality and the Nobility in Sweden, 1750–1900," Lund Papers in Economic History 161, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    20. Florencia Torche & Alejandro Corvalan, 2018. "Estimating Intergenerational Mobility With Grouped Data," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 47(4), pages 787-811, November.

    More about this item

    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:ico:wpaper:157. 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: Teresa Griesebner The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Teresa Griesebner to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/igjkuat.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.