USING RICH LISTS TO STUDY THE SUPER-RICH AND TOP WEALTH INEQUALITY: INSIGHTS FROM SWITZERLAND

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baselgia, Enea; Martinez, Isabel Z.
• 署名单位: Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01466
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; SHARES; EVOLUTION; mobility; FAMILY; france; tail

摘要

We present a new data set we built based on Swiss rich lists going back to 1989. We show, among other things, that 60% of the superrich are heirs-a fraction twice as large as in the United States-and that wealth mobility at the very top has declined significantly. We find that top 0.01% wealth shares are higher than what previous estimates based on wealth tax statistics suggest. At the same time, we argue that rich list data lead to overestimating wealth inequality. Although rich lists are valuable to study the super-rich, we recommend using reported wealth figures with caution.