The Distribution of Wealth *
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“Affluenza” by Mark Harmon
Arab Youth, TV Viewing & “Affluenza” By Mark Harmon September, 2008. Popularized by several books, articles, and even a stage play over the last several years, a hypothesis known as “affluenza” predicts that media consumption will correlate positively with higher levels of materialistic traits. This paper re-analyzes data from a lifestyle survey administered to youth in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with an eye towards testing the affluenza hypothesis in light of the ongoing boom in Arab satellite television. While the survey was not specifically designed to test for affluenza, and therefore not an optimal tool, it did collect data on television viewing and several lifestyle topics which have been linked to affluenza in previous studies. Surprisingly, the data from this survey of Egyptian and Saudi youth did not show a link between increased television viewing and materialistic traits – in stark contrast to surveys conducted in the United States and Europe. Before 1990, when most Arabic television stations were state-controlled monopolies with limited transnational reach, it would not make much sense to consider Arab television in terms of materialism. Programs, delivered by land-based transmitters, generally followed the political line of the state, rarely delivering programming that could be called daring. As Abdallah Schleifer put it, “Arab television, which came into being during the high tide of republican police states, did not even attempt journalism. Its photographers covered only occasions of state, and there were no correspondents, since it was ‘information’ not news that was sought. Anchors could do the job of reading state news agency wire copy describing these ceremonial occasions while unedited footage was transmitted.”i Advertising existed, but was restricted heavily, and clustered between programs—not interrupting them.ii Free to air satellite TV networks, however, soon changed the media landscape. -
Wealth Effect
March 2018 Weighing the Wealth Effect BY MARK ZANDI, BRIAN POI, SCOTT HOYT AND WAYNE BEST Abstract Consumers are powering the U.S. economy’s growth. Businesses, housing, government and global trade are all modestly contributing to growth, but it is the consumer who is key to the economy’s performance. Consumers are not spending with the abandon they did in the boom and bubble prior to the Great Recession, but they are stalwart in their spending. Benefiting consumers are strong economic tailwinds. The job market is healthy, creating lots of jobs across all pay scales in most regions of the country. With unemployment at near 4%, the economy is at full employment. Wage growth has been somewhat disappointing, but it is slowly picking up, and because of low inflation, real wage growth—nominal wage growth less inflation—is improving. Household leverage is low and credit is increasingly ample and cheap. Gasoline prices are off their recent bottom, but they remain low by most historical standards. Another critical tailwind to consumer spending has been rapidly rising asset prices—most important, stock and house values. Stock prices are up a robust 20% over the past 18 months, despite the recent market correction, and 300% since their nadir during the recession. House price gains have also been impressive, rising a robust nearly 10% to new highs over the past 18 months, and 40% since their nadir five years ago. The resulting increase in household wealth has supercharged consumer spending via the so-called wealth effect—the impact on consumer spending of changes in household wealth. -
Eight Reasons to Question Professor Cristobal Young's Conclusions
Eight Reasons to Question Professor Cristobal Young’s Conclusions about Millionaire Migration By Greg Sullivan WHITE PAPER No. 182 | May 2018 PIONEER INSTITUTE Pioneer’s Mission Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts through civic discourse and intellectually rigorous, data-driven public policy solutions based on free market principles, individual liberty and responsibility, and the ideal of effective, limited and accountable government. This paper is a publication of Pioneer Oppor- Pioneer Education seeks to increase the edu- tunity, which seeks to keep Massachusetts com- cation options available to parents and students, petitive by promoting a healthy business climate, drive system-wide reform, and ensure account- transparent regulation, small business creation in ability in public education. The Center’s work urban areas and sound environmental and devel- builds on Pioneer’s legacy as a recognized leader opment policy. Current initiatives promote mar- in the charter public school movement, and as ket reforms to increase the supply of affordable a champion of greater academic rigor in Mas- housing, reduce the cost of doing business, and sachusetts’ elementary and secondary schools. revitalize urban areas. Current initiatives promote choice and compe- tition, school-based management, and enhanced academic performance in public schools. Pioneer Health seeks to refocus the Massachu- Pioneer Public seeks limited, accountable gov- setts conversation about health care costs away ernment by promoting competitive delivery of from government-imposed interventions, toward public services, elimination of unnecessary reg- market-based reforms. Current initiatives include ulation, and a focus on core government func- driving public discourse on Medicaid; present- tions. -
Bosnia-Herzegovina Economy Briefing: Report: Keeping up with the Reform Agenda in 2019 Ivica Bakota
ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 14, No. 2 (BH) January 2019 Bosnia-Herzegovina economy briefing: Report: Keeping up with the Reform Agenda in 2019 Ivica Bakota 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 Report: Keeping up with the Reform Agenda in 2019 The second Bosnian four-year plan? In October 2018, German and British embassies organized a meeting with Bosnian economic and political experts, main party economic policy creators, EBRD and the WB representatives away from Bosnian political muddle in Slovenian Brdo kod Kranja to evaluate the success of the Reform Agenda and discuss the possibility of extending reform period or launching the second Reform Agenda. Defining an extension or a new reform agenda which in the next four years should tackle what was not covered in the first Agenda was prioritized on the meeting and is expected to become topical in the first months of the new administration. Regardless of the designed four- year timeframe, the government is expected to continue with enforcing necessary reforms envisioned in the (current) Reform Agenda and, according the official parlance, focuses on tackling those parts that haven’t been gotten straight. To make snap digression, the Reform Agenda was a broad set of social and economic reforms proposed (but poorly supervised) by German and other European ‘partners’ in order to help Bosnia and Herzegovina to exit from transitional limbo and make ‘real’ progress on the EU integrations track. -
What Does the Global Future Hold? Wealth and Income Inequality
What Does the Global Future Hold? Wealth and Income Inequality Facundo Alvaredo Paris School of Economics & IIEP-UBA-Conicet & INET at Oxford UN Environment Programme – International Resource Panel June 10th, 2021 The distribution of personal wealth is receiving a great deal of attention… …after being neglected for many years • US (Kopczuk-Saez, 2004; Saez-Zucman, 2016, 2019) • France (Garbinti-Goupille-Piketty, 2020) • UK (Alvaredo-Atkinson-Morelli, 2017, 2018) • Spain (Alvaredo-Saez, 2010; Martínez Toledano, 2018; Alvaredo-Artola, forthcoming) • Italy (Acciari, Alvaredo, Morelli, 2021) • Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland • Credit Suisse (Shorrocks and Davis), Allianz, Merrill Lynch, UBS,… reports • ECB/ONS/FRB network of wealth surveys, and related papers and reports • OECD Guidelines for Micro Statistics on Household Wealth and Database • LWS • Etc… Part II trends in Global inCome inequality Figure 2.3.2a top 1% vs. bottom 50% national income shares in the us and Western europe, 1980–2016 US 22% 20% 18% Top 1% US 16% 14% Share of national income (%) income national of Share 12% Bottom 50% US 10% 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Part II trends in Global inCome inequality Reason: increasing recognition that weSource: WID.worldneed (2017). See wir2018.wid.world to look for data series and notes.at capital incomes In 2016, 12% of national income was received by the top 1% in Western Europe, compared to 20% in the United States. In 1980, 10% of national income was received by the top 1% in Western Europe, compared to 11% in the United States. and Figure 2.3.2a not only at earnings top 1% vs. -
Warren Wealth Tax Would Have Raised $114 Billion in 2020 from Nation’S 650 Billionaires Alone
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 1, 2021 WARREN WEALTH TAX WOULD HAVE RAISED $114 BILLION IN 2020 FROM NATION’S 650 BILLIONAIRES ALONE Ten-Year Revenue Total Would Be $1.4 Trillion Even as Billionaire Wealth Continued to Grow WASHINGTON, D.C. – America’s billionaires would owe a total of about $114 billion in wealth tax for 2020 if the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act introduced today by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) had been in effect last year, based on Forbes billionaire wealth data analyzed by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies Project on Inequality (IPS). The ten-year revenue total would be about $1.4 trillion, and yet U.S. billionaire wealth would continue to grow. (The 10-year revenue estimate is explained below.) Billionaire wealth is top-heavy, so just the richest 15 own one-third of all the wealth and would thus be liable for about a third of the wealth tax (see table below). Under the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, those 15 richest billionaires would have paid a total of $40 billion in wealth tax for the 2020 tax year, but their projected collective wealth would have still increased by more than half (53%), only slightly lower than their actual 58% increase in wealth without the wealth tax, since March 18, 2020, the rough beginning of the pandemic and the start date for this analysis. Full billionaire data is here. Some examples from the top of the list: Jeff Bezos would pay $5.7 billion in wealth taxes for 2020, lowering the size of his fortune from $191.2 billion to $185.5 billion, or 5%, but it still would have increased by two-thirds from March 18 to the end of the year. -
Causes and Results of Inequitable Distribution of Wealth, Opportunity Or Education
Causes and Results of Inequitable Distribution of Wealth, Opportunity or Education By Claire Pettinger The unequal distribution of wealth is a major problem not only nationwide but worldwide. There are several reasons as to why this is an issue, but the two major ones go hand in hand: lack of resources and the unequal distribution of capitalism. A common misconception is that the main reason for this wealth gap is because the rich are rich, as if they stole the poor’s money. This is not the case. As a product of the inequitable distribution of wealth, opportunities to advance become scarce and the overall standard of living decreases. It is impossible to pin this gap on any one thing, for there are multiple causes that result in this division. However it is safe to say that the outcome of it can be catastrophic. There are several countries that prosper while having little resources. Their key to success is international trade. For example, Japan has very little usable farmland due to its rocky terrain and resources in general, and yet they are thriving. They are able to live in prosperity because of their open, capitalist economy. This prevents their government from interfering in their trade. Other countries such as the Central African Republic (CAR) are rich with resources, but do not have a capitalist economy, so its residents aren’t even allowed the opportunity to grow and thrive as a country. “The CAR’s economic freedom score is 46.7, making its economy the 161st freest in the 2014 Index” (Central). -
Plutocracy: the Marketising of ‘Equality’ Within Neoliberalism
City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Littler, J. (2013). Meritocracy as plutocracy: the marketising of ‘equality’ within neoliberalism. New Formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics, 80-81, pp. 52-72. doi: 10.3898/NewF.80/81.03.2013 This is the published version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/4167/ Link to published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.3898/NewF.80/81.03.2013 Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] MERITOCRACY AS PLUTOCRACY: THE MARKETISING OF ‘EQUALITY’ UNDER NEOLIBERALISM Jo Littler Abstract Meritocracy, in contemporary parlance, refers to the idea that whatever our social position at birth, society ought to facilitate the means for ‘talent’ to ‘rise to the top’. This article argues that the ideology of ‘meritocracy’ has become a key means through which plutocracy is endorsed by stealth within contemporary neoliberal culture. -
Income Mobility and the Persistence of Millionaires, 1999 to 2007
SPECIAL June 2010 No. 180 REPORT Income Mobility and the Persistence Of Millionaires, 1999 to 2007 By households move up from the bottom income Robert Carroll Summary Senior Fellow Concern over the rising gap between the rich quintile within ten years. Roughly 50 percent Tax Foundation and poor has been the primary rationale for also move down from the top quintile within ten President Obama’s redistributive policies. But years. one important aspect of the American economy that should lessen concerns about snapshots of This report generally confirms this same income inequality is the mobility of people up basic relationship using recent data covering the and down the economic ladder. nine years from 1999 through 2007: If people move quickly up and down • Nearly 60 percent of taxpayers move up through the income spectrum, the position they from the bottom quintile within this nine- occupy at any point in time may be less of a year period. concern. Moreover, it is natural that people at different stages in their life cycle of earnings— • Nearly 40 percent of taxpayers move down just entering the work force, just retired, or from the top quintile within this nine-year midlife during their peak earnings years—would period. occupy different rungs of the economic ladder. • Nearly 60 percent of taxpayers are in a dif- Research has documented that our economy ferent quintile in 2007 than they were in exhibits considerable mobility. Roughly half of 1999. Key Findings • Concerns over increased income inequality should be tempered by the fact that a substantial number of households move up or down through the income distribution over time. -
Affluenza: the All-Consuming Epidemic Second Edition
An Excerpt From Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic Second Edition by John de Graaf, David Wann, & Thomas H. Naylor Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers contents Foreword to the First Edition ix part two: causes 125 Foreword to the Second Edition xi 15. Original Sin 127 Preface xv 16. An Ounce of Prevention 133 Acknowledgments xxi 17. The Road Not Taken 139 18. An Emerging Epidemic 146 Introduction 1 19. The Age of Affluenza 153 20. Is There a (Real) Doctor in the House? 160 part one: symptoms 9 1. Shopping Fever 11 part three: treatment 2. A Rash of Bankruptcies 18 171 21. The Road to Recovery 173 3. Swollen Expectations 23 22. Bed Rest 177 4. Chronic Congestion 31 23. Aspirin and Chicken Soup 182 5. The Stress Of Excess 38 24. Fresh Air 188 6. Family Convulsions 47 25. The Right Medicine 197 7. Dilated Pupils 54 26. Back to Work 206 8. Community Chills 63 27. Vaccinations and Vitamins 214 9. An Ache for Meaning 72 28. Political Prescriptions 221 10. Social Scars 81 29. Annual Check-Ups 234 11. Resource Exhaustion 89 30. Healthy Again 242 12. Industrial Diarrhea 100 13. The Addictive Virus 109 Notes 248 14. Dissatisfaction Guaranteed 114 Bibliography and Sources 263 Index 276 About the Contributors 284 About Redefining Progress 286 vii preface As I write these words, a news story sits on my desk. It’s about a Czech supermodel named Petra Nemcova, who once graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. Not long ago, she lived the high life that beauty bought her—jet-setting everywhere, wearing the finest clothes. -
Very High Net Worth Handbook 2021 Very High Net Worth Handbook 2021
APPLIED WEALTH INTELLIGENCE VERY HIGH NET WORTH HANDBOOK 2021 VERY HIGH NET WORTH HANDBOOK 2021 JAMES LAVELL CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, EUROMONEY PEOPLE INTELLIGENCE RICHARD GREEN CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, EUROMONEY PEOPLE INTELLIGENCE MANUEL BIANCHI MANAGING DIRECTOR AND GLOBAL HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, WEALTH-X MICHAEL PHILLIPS VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS, EUROMONEY PEOPLE INTELLIGENCE LEAD AUTHORS MAYA IMBERG SENIOR DIRECTOR, THOUGHT LEADERSHIP AND DATA ANALYTICS, WEALTH-X MAEEN SHABAN DIRECTOR, RESEARCH AND DATA ANALYTICS, WEALTH-X STEPHANIE WARBURTON DIRECTOR OF VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS, EUROMONEY PEOPLE INTELLIGENCE © WEALTH-X APRIL 2021, A PART OF THE EUROMONEY INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR PLC GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS PUBLICATION IS FOR YOUR INFORMATION ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED AS AN OFFER, OR A SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER, TO BUY OR SELL ANY PRODUCT OR OTHER SPECIFIC SERVICE. ALL INFORMATION AND OPINIONS INDICATED ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Executive Summary 2 Introduction 3 A Wealth Tier of Considerable Importance 5 Global Map of the Very High Net Worth 7 The Very High Net Worth in 2020 8 VHNW Regions in 2020 at a Glance 13 Top 10 VHNW Countries 15 Top 10 VHNW Cities 17 Five-Year Outlook 19 Profiling Today's VHNW Individuals 19 Source of Wealth 20 Gender 21 Age 23 Primary Industry 25 Asset Allocation 26 Interests, Passions and Hobbies 28 Methodology 29 About Wealth-X and Euromoney People Intelligence 30 Wealth-X Analytics WEALTH-X VERY HIGH NET WORTH HANDBOOK 2021 To TableTo Table of Contentsof Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The global very high net worth (VHNW) population increased slightly in 2020 by to . -
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa povertydata.worldbank.org Poverty & Equity Brief Sub-Saharan Africa Angola April 2020 Between 2008-2009 and 2018-2019, the percent of people below the national poverty line changed from 37 percent to 41 percent (data source: IDR 2018-2019). During the same period, Angola experienced an increase in GDP per capita followed by a recession after 2014 when the price of oil declined. Based on the new benchmark survey (IDREA 2018-2019) and the new national poverty line, the incidence of poverty in Angola is at 32 percent nationally, 18 percent in urban areas and a staggering 54 percent in the less densely populated rural areas. In Luanda, less than 10 percent of the population is below the poverty line, whereas the provinces of Cunene (54 percent), Moxico (52 percent) and Kwanza Sul (50 percent) have much higher prevalence of poverty. Despite significant progress toward macroeconomic stability and adopting much needed structural reforms, estimates suggest that the economy remained in recession in 2019 for the fourth consecutive year. Negative growth was driven by the continuous negative performance of the oil sector whose production declined by 5.2 percent. This has not been favorable to poverty reduction. Poverty is estimated to have increased to 48.4 percent in 2019 compared to 47.6 percent in 2018 when using the US$ 1.9 per person per day (2011 PPP). COVID-19 will negatively affect labor and non-labor income. Slowdown in economic activity due to social distancing measures will lead to loss of earnings in the formal and informal sector, in particular among informal workers that cannot work remotely or whose activities were limited by Government.