This paper studies the stationary distribution of wealth by using a basic economic model encompassing saving, investment, occupational choice, an imperfect credit market, entrepreneurial abilities, and intergenerational wealth mobilities. It implies that persistent wealth inequality depends on...

Davies et al. (2008, 2011) provided the first estimates of the global distribution of wealth, using 2000 as the benchmark year. These estimates have been revised and updated since 2010, and the purpose of this paper is to explain the ways in which the estimation methodology has evolved and...

Many countries in the Western hemisphere are currently experiencing a backlash against globalization. Most of the research examining the issue has concentrated on international specialization and within-country income inequality as main drivers of the backlash. Doing so, the discussion has...

Some middle-income economies, many of which Latin American, have not achieved to make the transition into high-income status for long years and are allegedly trapped in middle-income status. While there is considerable consensus on the proximate causes of this phenomenon, we present a global...

We use historical publications and - for more recent years - micro-data from the income tax and wealth tax returns to estimate the development in income inequality in Denmark over the last 140 years. The paper breaks new ground in treating the specific features of the Danish Tax system and in...

This paper is about “Capital in the Twenty-first Century” by Thomas Piketty. It identifies his central macroeconomic claims and examines them, arguing that the contentions are theoretically and empirically unwarranted.

This paper reviews the long run developments in the distribution of personal income and wealth. It also discusses suggested explanations for the observed patterns. We try to answer questions such as: What do we know, and how do we know, about the distribution of income and wealth over time? Are...

The evolution of income distribution over two centuries is an attractive topic because it allows one to test the inverse U-curve hypothesis using long series instead of cross-section data. In Section 1 the distribution trends in countries where global data are available, is considered, that is...

Income and wealth inequality rose over the first 150 years of US history. They rose in Britain before 1875, especially 1740–1810. The first half of the 20th century equalized pre-fisc incomes both in Britain and in America. From the 1970s to the 1990s inequality rose in both countries,...

Globalisation has a major impact on the levels and distribution of wealth. The financial markets are highly integrated, and valuations of financial assets follow international patterns, which has contributed to large increases in financial wealth over the past 25 years. Nonetheless, this has not...