Distribution of wealth
The distribution of wealth refers to the allocation of net assets—comprising financial holdings, real estate, and other valuables minus liabilities—across individuals, households, or populations within economies or globally, a pattern consistently marked by substantial inequality driven by variances in productivity, savings, investment returns, and inheritance.[1] Empirical assessments, such as those from household surveys and balance sheet data, reveal that this uneven spread arises fundamentally from differential human capital, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and compounding effects of capital accumulation, rather than zero-sum extraction.[2] Globally, total wealth expanded by 4.6% in 2024 to exceed prior records, yet concentration persists, with the top 1% commanding approximately 47.5% of assets as of recent estimates, far outpacing the bottom 90%'s share of around 15%.[3][4] Regional disparities underscore this dynamic: average adult wealth in North America reached $593,347 in 2024, dwarfing figures in other areas like Western Europe at $287,688, reflecting concentrated growth in high-return markets such as the United States, which accounts for about 40% of global millionaires.[3] Wealth Gini coefficients, measuring deviation from equality on a 0-1 scale, often exceed 0.8 in nations like Brazil and Russia, indicating extreme skewness, while global aggregates hover near 0.9 for net worth distributions.[5] Such patterns fuel debates on causal mechanisms—whether innovation and market efficiencies naturally yield hierarchies that incentivize progress, or if policy interventions like progressive taxation could alter trajectories without stifling incentives—though evidence links extreme equalization efforts to reduced economic dynamism in historical cases.[2] Key controversies center on mobility implications, with data showing that while absolute poverty has declined amid rising totals, intergenerational persistence of advantage challenges narratives of pure meritocracy.[6]Definitions and Concepts
Definition and Components of Wealth
Wealth in economic terms refers to the net worth of an individual, household, or entity, computed as the total value of assets minus total liabilities.[7][8] This stock measure contrasts with income, which represents a flow of resources over time, and emphasizes accumulated resources that can generate future consumption or production capacity.[9] Economists typically focus on marketable assets—those convertible to cash—excluding non-marketable elements like human capital (e.g., skills or future earnings potential) due to measurement difficulties and lack of transferability.[10] Assets constituting wealth fall into two primary categories: financial and non-financial. Financial assets include liquid holdings such as bank deposits, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and retirement accounts like pensions or 401(k)s, which represented significant portions of U.S. household wealth in recent surveys.[11] Non-financial assets encompass real estate (primary residences and investment properties), business equity, vehicles, and consumer durables (e.g., appliances), with home equity and retirement accounts comprising the majority of aggregate U.S. household wealth as of 2022.[12] These components vary by jurisdiction and methodology; for instance, international reports often aggregate them to assess global net worth.[13] Liabilities subtract from gross assets to yield net wealth and include mortgages, consumer loans, credit card debt, and other borrowings.[9] High leverage, such as mortgage debt against real estate, can amplify wealth volatility, as asset appreciation increases net worth while debt burdens constrain liquidity.[14] In distribution analyses, net wealth captures economic security, buffering against shocks like unemployment, though zero or negative net worth affects about 10% of U.S. households as of 2023.[15] Valuation relies on market prices where available (e.g., traded securities) or estimates for illiquid assets (e.g., appraised real estate), introducing challenges in comparability across contexts.[7] Public data from sources like the U.S. Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances or international bodies provide standardized breakdowns, revealing that real estate and equities dominate for wealthier households, while lower percentiles hold more in durables and fewer liabilities.[11][14]Distinction from Income and Measurement Challenges
Wealth constitutes the accumulated stock of assets—such as financial holdings, real estate, businesses, and other valuables—net of liabilities, providing a measure of an individual's or household's total economic resources at a given point.[9] Income, by contrast, is the periodic flow of resources from earnings like wages, salaries, rents, dividends, and transfers, reflecting current economic activity rather than historical accumulation.[9] [16] This distinction implies that wealth distribution captures intergenerational transfers, savings rates, and capital returns, which amplify concentration among those with initial advantages, whereas income distribution is more influenced by labor market dynamics and is generally less skewed.[17] Empirical evidence confirms greater inequality in wealth than income; for example, in OECD countries, the top 10% of households hold 50-70% of total wealth but only 30-45% of income, yielding Gini coefficients for wealth often exceeding 0.6-0.7 compared to 0.3-0.4 for income.[17] [18] Wealth's persistence across generations—via inheritance and compounding returns—further entrenches disparities, unlike income, which can fluctuate with employment or policy changes.[19] Assessing wealth distribution faces inherent methodological hurdles beyond those for income, primarily due to its static, heterogeneous nature. Household surveys, a common source, systematically undercapture the top tail through non-response, privacy concerns, and underreporting by high-wealth individuals, biasing inequality estimates downward and distorting trends.[20] [21] Tax and administrative records provide broader coverage but exclude unrealized gains, offshore assets, and non-taxable holdings like trusts, while relying on self-valuation for illiquid items such as private equity or collectibles, which introduces appraisal inconsistencies.[20] [22] Cross-national comparability exacerbates these issues, as definitions of includable assets vary (e.g., pension rights or human capital in some frameworks but not others), and informal economies in developing regions obscure unrecorded holdings.[21] [23] Specialized surveys like the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances oversample affluent households to mitigate underrepresentation, yet even these yield divergent results from panel data when measuring net worth dynamics.[22] Overall, these challenges imply that reported wealth inequality metrics likely understate true concentrations at the apex, necessitating hybrid approaches combining surveys with big data or imputations for robust analysis.[19][21]Theoretical Frameworks for Distribution
In neoclassical economics, the marginal productivity theory of distribution asserts that under competitive conditions, each factor of production—labor, capital, land—earns a return equivalent to its marginal contribution to output, as formalized by John Bates Clark in the 1890s.[24] This framework implies that wealth disparities arise from variations in productivity, such as differences in skill, innovation, or capital deployment, with markets allocating rewards based on value added rather than arbitrary shares. Empirical models incorporating this theory, often via general equilibrium simulations, demonstrate how heterogeneous agent abilities and returns generate observed skewness in wealth holdings, particularly when combined with savings behavior and risk aversion.[25] Critiques of marginal productivity emphasize market imperfections, including monopoly power and rent-seeking, which allow factors to capture supra-marginal returns disconnected from productive contributions. For instance, Joseph Stiglitz's models highlight how incomplete information and bargaining asymmetries lead to persistent inequality beyond productivity differences, challenging the theory's reliance on perfect competition.[26] Recent quantitative frameworks extend this by integrating rent-generating mechanisms, such as intellectual property protections or financial leverage, which amplify wealth concentration through returns uncorrelated with marginal output.[27] Marxist theory, conversely, attributes wealth distribution to class dynamics and exploitation via surplus value, where workers generate value exceeding their wages, with the excess appropriated by capital owners to fuel accumulation.[28] Karl Marx argued this process inherently concentrates wealth in fewer hands, as reinvested surplus expands capital while proletarianizing labor, predicting escalating inequality absent revolutionary redistribution. However, empirical tests of Marxist predictions, such as proletarian pauperization, find limited support in long-run data from industrialized economies, where wage shares have fluctuated but not monotonically declined due to technological shifts and institutional factors.[29] Human capital theory posits that investments in education, training, and skills drive earnings differentials, translating into wealth gaps through compounded lifetime income and savings.[30] Developed by economists like Gary Becker, it explains inequality as arising from initial endowments, access to education, and returns to ability, with evidence from panel data showing that human capital adjustments reduce measured wealth dispersion by 20-30% in U.S. households.[31] Yet, this overlooks intergenerational transmission via bequests and financial capital returns, which dominate top-tail inequality; heterogeneous-agent models reveal that bequest motives and precautionary savings amplify disparities even among equal human capital cohorts.[32] Macro-level frameworks, such as those emphasizing multiplicative wealth processes, account for Pareto-distributed tails observed globally, where random returns on assets—independent of initial productivity—generate exponential divergence over time.[33] These models, calibrated to historical data, underscore causal roles for low time preference, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and institutional enforcement of property rights in sustaining unequal distributions, rather than zero-sum extraction. Institutional variations, including taxation and inheritance laws, modulate outcomes, with simulations indicating that progressive bequest taxes can flatten distributions without curtailing growth incentives.[34] Overall, no single framework fully reconciles theory with empirics, as wealth skewness persists across regimes, pointing to interplay between individual heterogeneity, stochastic dynamics, and policy structures.Historical Context
Pre-Industrial and Early Modern Periods
In pre-industrial societies, prior to the widespread adoption of mechanized production around 1800, wealth was primarily embodied in land, livestock, and rudimentary capital goods, with ownership concentrated among a narrow elite comprising nobility, clergy, and monarchs who extracted rents and tribute from the agrarian majority. The bulk of the population—peasants and serfs bound to the land—held minimal assets, often confined to personal tools, household goods, and subsistence plots, fostering structural barriers to accumulation through feudal obligations like corvée labor and manorial dues. This resulted in profound inequality, as reconstructed from probate inventories and tax assessments; for instance, in England between 1327 and 1332, the wealth Gini coefficient stood at 0.725, indicating that the top decile controlled the vast majority of resources while the bottom half possessed near-zero net worth.[35] Similar patterns prevailed across feudal Europe, where nobility constituted less than 1-2% of the population yet dominated land tenure, with church holdings further entrenching elite control—evident in 14th-century Bohemia, where wealth Gini estimates ranged from 0.739 to 0.777 based on urban records from Budweis in 1416.[36] Empirical analyses of social tables from 28 pre-industrial societies, spanning ancient Greece to 18th-century Asia and the Americas, reveal income Gini coefficients averaging 0.45 (with a range of 0.25 to 0.65), underscoring elite extraction as a common feature driven by Malthusian dynamics: population pressures eroded subsistence levels for the masses while elites captured surpluses via institutional rents.[37] Wealth disparities exceeded income inequality due to indivisible assets like estates, which compounded intergenerational transmission; in medieval Spain, labor income Gini in urban centers like Murcia circa 1600 hovered around 0.51, but total wealth metrics reflected even steeper pyramids, with the top 1% amassing shares upwards of 20-30% in reconstructed distributions.[38] These estimates, derived from archival sources such as wills and censuses, likely understate top-end concentration owing to tax evasion by elites and incomplete records of movable wealth, yet they consistently depict societies where 80-90% of aggregate wealth accrued to 10% of households.[39] The early modern period (circa 1500-1800) saw continuity in this elite dominance amid nascent commercialization, as mercantile gains and colonial ventures augmented rather than diffused wealth, with European nobility adapting enclosures and joint-stock enterprises to consolidate holdings. In England, wealth inequality intensified, with the Gini rising to 0.756 by 1524-1525, fueled by inflationary pressures from New World silver inflows that disproportionately benefited landowners while eroding peasant tenures.[35] Across 13 early modern European social tables, income Gini averaged 0.47, reflecting persistent agrarian extraction despite urban growth; associational bodies like guilds mitigated some local disparities but failed to alter macro-level pyramids, as land reforms and primogeniture preserved elite shares.[40] In non-European contexts, such as Ottoman or Mughal domains, analogous concentrations persisted through iqta land grants and zamindari systems, where rulers and warlords skimmed agricultural surpluses, yielding comparable high-inequality equilibria verifiable via fiscal ledgers. Overall, from 1300 to 1800, European wealth inequality trended upward monotonically, as capital returns outpaced demographic leveling, setting a baseline of elite capture that industrialization would later disrupt.[41]19th and 20th Century Shifts
The Industrial Revolution, beginning in Britain around 1760 and spreading to Europe and North America by the mid-19th century, marked a pivotal shift toward greater wealth concentration among industrial capitalists and landowners. As manufacturing expanded, returns on capital—through factories, machinery, and railroads—outpaced wage growth for the emerging industrial proletariat, leading to rising inequality within industrializing nations. In Britain, data from 1270 to 1940 indicate that increasing inequality drove the reallocation of resources toward manufacturing, with the Gini coefficient for income reaching approximately 0.60 by 1800, where the wealthiest 20% captured 65% of total income.[42][43] Similarly, in the United States, 19th-century industrialization elevated wealth disparities, as evidenced by estate tax records showing heightened concentration by 1870, with the top decile's share of wealth surpassing pre-industrial levels due to rapid capital accumulation in sectors like railroads and steel.[44] Globally, this era coincided with colonial expansion, where European powers extracted resources from Asia, Africa, and the Americas, exacerbating international wealth gaps; per capita incomes in the West diverged sharply from subsistence levels elsewhere, with the income ratio between the richest and poorest countries widening to around 50:1 by the late 19th century.[45][46] The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw inequality peak in many Western economies, exemplified by the U.S. Gilded Age (circa 1870–1900), where fortunes amassed by figures like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie reflected top 1% wealth shares approaching 45% by 1916, driven by unchecked monopoly formation and minimal taxation.[47] In Europe, similar patterns emerged, with industrial elites in France and Germany holding disproportionate assets amid urbanization that left rural and urban poor with stagnant shares. However, the Great Depression (1929–1939) initiated a reversal, as asset deflation—particularly in stocks and real estate held by the wealthy—eroded top fortunes, while government interventions like the U.S. New Deal introduced progressive taxation and social programs that redistributed income.[48] World War II (1939–1945) accelerated this "Great Compression," destroying capital through bombings and seizures, mobilizing labor (boosting wages via unions and full employment), and imposing high marginal tax rates—up to 94% on top U.S. incomes by 1944—which compressed wealth shares; U.S. top 1% wealth share fell to about 22% by 1978.[49][47] In Europe, wartime dynamics yielded comparable Gini declines of 7–10 points in income distribution for countries like the UK and France.[49] Postwar policies sustained lower inequality until the 1970s, with welfare states, strong labor unions, and capital controls in Western Europe and North America fostering broader middle-class wealth accumulation through homeownership and pensions. In the U.S., union density peaked at 35% of the workforce in 1954, contributing to about 25% of the Gini decline from 1936–1968 via higher median wages. Globally, decolonization after 1945 allowed some former colonies to industrialize, narrowing inter-country gaps slightly by the 1970s, though within-nation inequality varied; communist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe enforced nominal equality but concentrated power-wealth among elites, with Gini rises of 10–20 points post-reforms. These shifts underscore how exogenous shocks (wars, depressions) and deliberate policies (taxation, labor rights) temporarily overrode capital's tendency to concentrate, though underlying dynamics like technological capital returns persisted.[50][51][52]Post-1980 Globalization and Technological Impacts
Since the 1980s, globalization—characterized by trade liberalization, capital mobility, and the integration of emerging markets like China and India—has exerted divergent effects on wealth distribution. Globally, it reduced between-country inequality by enabling rapid economic catch-up in developing nations; for instance, China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 facilitated export-led growth, lifting over 800 million people out of extreme poverty between 1980 and 2020, which compressed the worldwide Gini coefficient for income from approximately 0.70 in 1980 to around 0.63 by 2016.[53] [54] However, within advanced economies, offshoring of manufacturing and services to low-wage countries displaced low-skilled workers, contributing to stagnant wages for non-college-educated labor and rising wealth gaps; in the United States, manufacturing employment fell from 19.5 million jobs in 1979 to 12.8 million by 2019, correlating with a widening premium for skilled labor.[55] [56] Technological advancements, particularly the information technology revolution and automation since the 1980s, have amplified wealth concentration through skill-biased technical change (SBTC), which disproportionately rewards high-skilled workers and capital owners. SBTC, driven by computerization and software innovations, increased the relative demand for cognitive skills, elevating the college wage premium in the US from 30% in 1980 to over 60% by 2000, while automating routine tasks displaced middle-skill occupations and widened the gap between high- and low-wage earners.[57] [58] Empirical analyses attribute roughly half of the US income inequality rise since 1980 to automation, with effects persisting into wealth accumulation as returns to capital in tech-intensive sectors outpaced labor income; the top 1% share of US net worth rose from about 23% in 1989 to 31.5% by 2023.[59] [60] These forces interacted synergistically: global supply chains amplified SBTC by allowing firms to offshore low-skill production while retaining high-skill R&D domestically, fostering "superstar" effects in winner-take-all markets like software and finance, where scale economies concentrate gains among top innovators and investors. Globally, the top 1% income share climbed from 16% in 1980 to 20.6% by 2020, with wealth inequality following suit as asset values in tech and trade-exposed sectors surged; IMF research indicates technology's role in inequality exceeds globalization's, underscoring causal primacy in labor market polarization.[61] [4] In developing economies, however, technology adoption via globalization often equalized wealth by enabling small-scale entrepreneurship, though elite capture of rents in resource sectors limited broad diffusion.[62] Overall, post-1980 dynamics reflect causal realism: productivity-enhancing integration and innovation boosted total wealth but skewed distribution toward those controlling complementary factors like skills and capital, with limited countervailing redistribution in most jurisdictions.[63]Measurement and Empirical Data
Key Metrics and Indices
The Gini coefficient quantifies wealth inequality by measuring the deviation of the wealth distribution from perfect equality, with values ranging from 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality). For wealth, which includes assets minus debts, the coefficient typically exceeds that for income due to concentration in illiquid and appreciating assets like property and equities. In the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, country-level wealth Gini coefficients highlight extreme disparities, such as 0.82 in Brazil and Russia, and 0.81 in South Africa, reflecting structural factors including resource dependence and institutional weaknesses.[1] Percentile wealth shares offer a complementary metric, capturing concentration at the top by calculating the proportion of total net wealth held by groups like the top 1% or top 10%. Globally, approximately 1.6% of adults control 48.1% of personal wealth, underscoring how risk-taking, innovation, and capital accumulation amplify disparities.[64] The World Inequality Database provides granular estimates, showing the top 1% wealth share varying by methodology but consistently high, often exceeding 35% in advanced economies like the United States at 40.5%.[6][4] The wealth pyramid, a distributional framework used in reports like UBS's, segments the global adult population into bands based on net worth thresholds (e.g., under $10,000, $10,000–$100,000, $100,000–$1 million, over $1 million) and reveals both population shares and their corresponding wealth holdings. In 2024, 40.7% of adults held less than $10,000, down from 75% in 2000, while the over-$1 million segment—comprising about 1% of adults—accounted for nearly half of total global wealth, driven by financial market gains and entrepreneurship.[1][65] Additional indices, such as the Palma ratio (ratio of top 10% wealth to bottom 40%), further emphasize tail disparities, though less standardized for wealth than income. These metrics collectively demonstrate persistent global wealth concentration, with mean wealth per adult far exceeding the median, as asset ownership skews toward higher percentiles.[66]| Country | Wealth Gini Coefficient (2024) |
|---|---|
| Brazil | 0.82 |
| Russia | 0.82 |
| South Africa | 0.81 |
| United States | ~0.85 (estimated from shares) |
Global Wealth Distribution Statistics
Global personal wealth grew by 4.6% in 2024, reaching a new record level following a 4.2% increase in 2023, driven primarily by strong performance in financial markets and currency appreciation in key regions.[3] This growth continued a long-term upward trend, with compound annual growth of 3.4% since 2000.[3] The UBS Global Wealth Report estimates that adults with net worth exceeding USD 1 million—approximately 1.6% of the global adult population—held 48.1% of total personal wealth in 2024.[64] The global wealth pyramid illustrates stark concentration at the top. Nearly 60 million adults qualified as USD millionaires in 2024, owning roughly USD 226 trillion in combined assets, with the United States accounting for 40% of the global total and adding 379,000 new millionaires during the year.[67] [3] Within this group, "everyday millionaires" (USD 1–5 million) numbered 52 million and controlled USD 107 trillion.[3] At the base, the share of adults with wealth under USD 10,000 declined to 39.5%, while the USD 10,000–100,000 band became the largest, encompassing about 1.6 billion adults.[68]| Wealth Range (USD) | Share of Adults (%) | Approximate Number of Adults (millions) | Share of Global Wealth (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| < 10,000 | 39.5 | ~2,100 | <1 |
| 10,000–100,000 | ~30 | 1,600 | ~10 |
| 100,000–1 million | ~8–10 | ~500 | ~20 |
| >1 million | 1.6 | 60 | 48.1 |
Recent Trends and Projections to 2025
Global wealth experienced a sharp contraction of approximately 2.3% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by robust recovery with annual growth rates exceeding 7% in both 2021 and 2022, driven primarily by rising equity markets and real estate values in advanced economies.[1] By 2023, growth moderated to around 4.2%, and in 2024, it accelerated to 4.6%, lifting total global household wealth to an estimated $510 trillion, with per-adult wealth reaching about $100,000 in nominal terms.[3] This upward trajectory reflects market-driven asset appreciation, particularly in stocks and property, amid low interest rates until mid-2022 and subsequent monetary tightening that disproportionately benefited asset holders.[1] Wealth concentration remained elevated throughout the period, with the top 10% of adults holding roughly 76% of global net personal wealth as of 2022, a figure stable from pre-pandemic levels and indicative of persistent structural disparities in asset ownership.[70] Millionaires—defined as individuals with net worth over $1 million—accounted for nearly half of global personal wealth in 2024, up from prior years due to stock market gains favoring high-net-worth portfolios.[5] Regionally, North America, led by the United States (holding 35% of global wealth), saw the strongest per-adult gains, while emerging markets like China contributed to narrowing inter-country gaps through rapid middle-class expansion, though intra-country inequality widened in many nations.[69][71] Projections through 2025 anticipate continued moderate global wealth expansion of 3-5% annually, supported by anticipated economic stabilization, technological productivity gains, and demographic shifts, though vulnerabilities from geopolitical tensions and inflation could temper asset returns.[1] A significant intergenerational wealth transfer, estimated at $83 trillion over the next 20-25 years, is underway, with the United States capturing about 29% of it, primarily through inheritances that reinforce existing concentrations among upper wealth brackets.[65] Data up to 2025 from extended historical series suggest that total wealth accumulation will surpass prior peaks, but the top 1% share may edge higher absent policy interventions disrupting capital returns, as historical patterns link inequality stability to underlying rates of return exceeding economic growth.[72] These forecasts underscore that while absolute wealth levels rise for most adults, distributional dynamics favor those with diversified, high-return assets, perpetuating pyramid-like structures observed since the 1980s.[1]Patterns and Variations
Global Overview and Pyramid Structures
Global wealth distribution exhibits extreme concentration, with the vast majority of assets held by a small fraction of the world's adult population. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, total global wealth grew by 4.6% in 2024, reaching levels that underscore persistent skewness in holdings.[3] The top 1% of adults, comprising approximately 60 million individuals, control nearly half of all personal wealth, estimated at 48.1% or $226 trillion.[64] This elite tier primarily includes those with net worth exceeding $1 million, reflecting accumulation through high-productivity investments, entrepreneurship, and asset appreciation in advanced economies.[69] The pyramid structure of global wealth further illustrates this disparity, typically segmented into tiers by net worth per adult: the base encompasses over 90% of adults with minimal holdings, while progressively narrower upper layers hold disproportionate shares. The top 10% of adults command about 85% of global wealth, leaving the bottom 90% with the remaining 15%.[73] Within the upper echelons, ultra-high-net-worth individuals (over $50 million) represent less than 0.1% of adults but account for a significant portion of the apex's value, often exceeding 10-15% of total wealth when disaggregated.[1] These figures derive from household balance sheets, netting financial and non-financial assets against debts, and exclude human capital or public entitlements.[69]| Wealth Tier (Net Worth per Adult) | Share of Adults (%) | Share of Global Wealth (%) |
|---|---|---|
| > $1 million | 1.6 | 48.1 |
| $100,000 - $1 million | ~8 | ~37 |
| <$100,000 | 90.4 | 14.9 |
Regional and National Disparities
Wealth distribution exhibits stark regional disparities, with the Americas holding approximately 39.3% of global wealth in 2024, followed by Asia-Pacific at 35.9% and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at 24.8%, despite the latter region's larger population share.[1] These imbalances stem from higher average wealth per adult in developed regions, driven by financial assets and real estate accumulation, while sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia contribute minimally due to lower asset bases and economic output. For instance, North America's wealth growth outpaced other regions in 2024, fueled by U.S. stock market gains and a stable dollar, contrasting with slower advances in emerging markets outside Greater China.[69] Nationally, average wealth per adult varies dramatically, exceeding $500,000 in countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg as of 2023 data, while falling below $10,000 in nations such as India, Indonesia, and most African states.[1] This per capita gap underscores causal factors like institutional stability, capital markets depth, and historical capital accumulation, rather than mere population size; for example, small European economies like Iceland and Norway rank high due to resource wealth and savings rates, whereas resource-rich African countries like Nigeria lag owing to governance inefficiencies and capital flight.[1] Wealth inequality within nations further amplifies disparities, with Gini coefficients for wealth (on a 0-100 scale) reaching 89 in South Africa, 86 in Brazil, and 83 in Russia in recent estimates, indicating top deciles control over 70% of national wealth in these cases.[74] In contrast, European nations like Slovakia (Gini 62) and Slovenia exhibit lower inequality, reflecting stronger social safety nets and progressive taxation, though even there, the top 10% hold 50-60% of assets.[74] Latin America and parts of Eastern Europe display persistently high wealth concentration, linked to weak property rights and elite capture, while East Asia's disparities have moderated in countries like Japan (Gini around 65) due to broad equity participation post-1990s reforms.[71]| Region | Share of Global Wealth (2024) | Avg. Wealth Growth (2008-2023) | Example National Gini (Wealth, Recent) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Americas | 39.3% | 37.3% | U.S.: 85 |
| Asia-Pacific | 35.9% | 36.9% | China: 70 |
| EMEA | 24.8% | 25.8% | South Africa: 89 |