Abstract
Wealth – a household’s net worth – affects everyone’s lives. Wealth is
distributed very unequally: about a fifth of households have negative
or zero net worth, while some households own millions or even
billions. Moreover, households own very different kinds of wealth;
some only have a bank account and a house, others have stocks and
are firm-owners. Why is the wealth distribution so skewed and how
has this changed over time? Are there major differences between
countries and how can we explain those? How do we even measure
wealth? This dissertation seeks to shed light on all these questions, in
four chapters.
The first chapter reconstructs household wealth in the Netherlands
since 1854 as well as its distribution. Wealth concentration was
high in the late 19th century, declined after World War II, and has
increased again. The Dutch colonial past contributed significantly
to the high levels of concentration pre-World War II, while
homeownership and the pension system are the major drivers of
the current increase in household wealth. Chapters 2 and 3 show
that the main theoretical way to think about wealth – the Pareto
distribution – is rejected by the data. A simple alternative, the Weibull
distribution, fits much better, and also explains cross-country
differences in the number of billionaires. Chapter 4 tackles the
measurement of the value of private businesses, the main wealth
component of the wealthiest households. Correctly measuring
these values results in large increases in wealth inequality and total
household wealth
Original language | English |
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Qualification | Doctor of Philosophy |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisors/Advisors |
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Award date | 14 Feb 2025 |
Place of Publication | Utrecht |
Publisher | |
Print ISBNs | 978-94-91870-64-4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 14 Feb 2025 |
Keywords
- wealth inequality
- wealth concentration
- Pareto distribution
- Weibull distribution
- billionaires
- firm owners