This volume looks beyond the distribution of income by examining the assets, debts, and net worth of individuals and households to create a global picture of wealth, its distribution and concentration. Unlike previous studies, this study includes material on a number of transition and developing countries as well as high income OECD countries.

James B. Davies received his BA from the University of Manitoba (1973) and his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics (1979). A faculty member at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, since 1977, he served as Chair of the Department of Economics from 1992 to 2001. Davies is the author of two books and numerous articles in academic journals and scholarly volumes. He has advised the Ontario and Canadian governments as well as the World Bank. Currently the managing editor of Canadian Public Policy, Davies has served for the last three years as director of the UNU-WIDER research project Personal Assets from a Global Perspective.

• 1: James B. Davies: An Overview of Personal Wealth


• Part I: The Rich and the Super-Rich


• 2: Markus Jäntti and Eva Sierminska: Survey Estimates of Wealth Holdings in OECD Countries: Evidence on the Level and Distribution across Selected Countries


• 3: Henry Ohlsson, Jesper Roine, and Daniel Waldenström: Long-Run Changes in the Concentration of Wealth: An Overview of Recent Findings


• 4: Anthony B. Atkinson: Concentration among the Rich


• Part II: Wealth Holdings in the Developing World and Transition Countries


• 5: Shi Li and Renwei Zhao: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China, 1995-2002


• 6: S. Subramanian and D. Jayaraj: The Distribution of Household Wealth in India


• 7: Sergei Guriev and Andrei Rachinsky: The Evolution of Personal Wealth in the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe


• 8: Florencia Torche and Seymour Spilerman: Household Wealth in Latin America


• 9: Juliano Assunção: Land Reform and Land Holdings in Brazil


• 10: Janine Aron, John Muellbauer, and Johan Prinsloo: Estimating the Balance Sheet of the Personal Sector in an Emerging Market Country: South Africa, 1975-2003


• 11: Christian Rogg: Asset Portfolios in Africa: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia


• 12: Ronelle Burger, Frikkie Booysen, Servaas van der Berg, and Michael von Maltitz: Marketable Wealth in a Poor African Country: Using an Index of Consumer Durables to Investigate Wealth Accumulation by Households in Ghana


• Part III: The Role of Personal Assets in Economic Development and Performance


• 13: Patrick Honohan: Household Financial Assets in the Process of Development


• 14: John Muellbauer: Housing and Personal Wealth in a Global Context


• 15: Ruslan Yemtsov: Housing Privatization and Household Wealth in Transition


• 16: James C. MacGee: Land Titles, Credit Markets, and Wealth Distribution


• 17: Carmen Diana Deere and Cheryl R. Doss: Gender and the Distribution of Wealth in Developing Countries


• 18: Sangeeta Pratap and Erwan Quintin: The Informal Sector in Developing Countries: Output, Assets, and Employment


• Part IV: Who Owns the World?


• 19: James B. Davies, Susanna Sandström, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff: The World Distribution of Household Wealth