Wealth inequality in the long run

This chapter provides an overview of long-term changes in wealth inequality based on the Gini index and the wealth share of the richest 10%. The chapter relies on current databases such as the World Inequality Database (WID) but expands the time series for a range of countries (back to 1820 in the case of France, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States) and by producing new estimates. Our data confirm the general picture of a creeping increase in inequality during the 19th century, followed by declines from the onset of World War I (1914) until the 1960s and, in many (but not all) countries, a new tendency towards higher inequality since the 1970s. The correlation of wealth inequality with per capita GDP is found to be quite weak and not always positive, implying that higher wealth inequality cannot be considered a simple side effect of economic growth.