IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2019-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring wealth inequality in South Africa: An agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Aroop Chatterjee

Abstract

Understanding wealth inequality has unique significance in South Africa. The co-existence of extreme poverty and extreme wealth is starkly visible. Apartheid-era inequality has persisted despite more than 20 years of democracy. Much of the research on inequality has focused on inequality of income and of opportunities. There is a large gap in understanding wealth inequality—levels of wealth inequality, how wealth is held, and the mechanism through which wealth inequality is produced and reproduced. This gap requires a specific research agenda, which this paper suggests.

Suggested Citation

  • Aroop Chatterjee, 2019. "Measuring wealth inequality in South Africa: An agenda," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
  • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp-2019-45.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bagchi, Sutirtha & Svejnar, Jan, 2015. "Does wealth inequality matter for growth? The effect of billionaire wealth, income distribution, and poverty," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 505-530.
    2. Adrian Adermon & Mikael Lindahl & Daniel Waldenström, 2018. "Intergenerational Wealth Mobility and the Role of Inheritance: Evidence from Multiple Generations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 482-513, July.
    3. Thomas F. Crossley & Cormac O'Dea & Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B. Atkinson & Salvatore Morelli, 2016. "The Challenge of Measuring UK Wealth Inequality in the 2000s," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 37, pages 13-33, March.
    4. Alfani, Guido & Tadei, Federico, 2017. "Income Inequality In Colonial Africa: Building Social Tables For Pre-Independence Central African Republic, Ivory Coast And Senegal," African Economic History Working Paper 33/2017, African Economic History Network.
    5. Anthony B. Atkinson, 2018. "Wealth and inheritance in Britain from 1896 to the present," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(2), pages 137-169, June.
    6. repec:bla:revinw:v:20:y:1974:i:2:p:125-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B Atkinson, 2010. "Colonial Rule, Apartheid and Natural Resources: Top Incomes in South Africa 1903-2005," OxCarre Working Papers 046, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    8. A. B. Atkinson & A. J. Harrison, 1974. "Wealth Distribution And Investment Income In Britain," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 20(2), pages 125-142, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. South Africa needs to mitigate the worst of its inequalities in tackling coronavirus
      by ? in PreventionWeb News & Announcements on 2020-04-04 23:00:00

    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. Alvaredo, Facundo & Atkinson, Anthony B. & Morelli, Salvatore, 2018. "Top wealth shares in the UK over more than a century," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 26-47.
    2. Juan C. Palomino & Gustavo A. Marrero & Brian Nolan & Juan G. Rodriguez, 2020. "Wealth inequality, intergenerational transfers and socioeconomic background," Working Papers 537, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Juan C Palomino & Gustavo A Marrero & Brian Nolan & Juan G Rodríguez, 2022. "Wealth inequality, intergenerational transfers, and family background [Intergenerational wealth mobility and the role of inheritance: Evidence from multiple generations]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 643-670.
    4. Korom, Philipp, 2016. "Inherited advantage: The importance of inheritance for private wealth accumulation in Europe," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/11, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2021. "Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    6. Galli, Stefania & Dimitrios, Theodoridis, & Rönnbäck, Klas, 2024. "Thriving in a declining economy - Elite persistence in the West Indies, 1760-1914," Göteborg Papers in Economic History 37, University of Gothenburg, Unit for Economic History.
    7. Cummins, Neil, 2024. "Ethnic Wealth Inequality in England and Wales, 1858-2018," CEPR Discussion Papers 19398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Jorge Rojas-Vallejos & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2021. "Differential Tariffs and Income Inequality in the United States: Some Evidence from the States," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 1-35, February.
    9. Jørgen Modalsli & Kelly Vosters, 2024. "Spillover Bias in Multigenerational Income Regressions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 59(3), pages 743-776.
    10. Clark, Gregory & Cummins, Neil, 2016. "The Child Quality-Quantity Tradeoff, England, 1780-1880: A Fundamental Component of the Economic Theory of Growth is Missing," CEPR Discussion Papers 11232, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    12. Sandra E Black & Paul J Devereux & Petter Lundborg & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Poor Little Rich Kids? The Role of Nature versus Nurture in Wealth and Other Economic Outcomes and Behaviours," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(4), pages 1683-1725.
    13. Adrian Adermon & Mikael Lindahl & Daniel Waldenström, 2018. "Intergenerational Wealth Mobility and the Role of Inheritance: Evidence from Multiple Generations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 482-513, July.
    14. Glen Loutzenhiser & Elizabeth Mann, 2021. "Liquidity issues: solutions for the asset rich, cash poor," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3-4), pages 651-675, September.
    15. Anastasios Evgenidis & Apostolos Fasianos, 2019. "Monetary Policy and Wealth Inequalities in Great Britain: Assessing the role of unconventional policies for a decade of household data," Papers 1912.09702, arXiv.org.
    16. Simon Halphen Boserup & Wojciech Kopczuk & Claus Thustrup Kreiner, 2018. "Born with a Silver Spoon? Danish Evidence on Wealth Inequality in Childhood," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 514-544, July.
    17. Cragg Michael & Ghayad Rand, 2015. "Growing Apart: The Evolution of Income vs. Wealth Inequality," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, August.
    18. Pedro Salas-Rojo & Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2022. "Inheritances and wealth inequality: a machine learning approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 27-51, March.
    19. Mathias Moser & Stefan Humer & Matthias Schnetzer, 2016. "Bequests and the accumulation of wealth in the Eurozone," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 149, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    20. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2019. "Salience of Inherited Wealth and the Support for Inheritance Taxation," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02877003, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Administrative data; Wealth inequality;

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-45. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.