Hidden wealth

Neil Cummins

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: Sharp declines in wealth-concentration occurred across Europe and the US during the 20th century. But this stylized fact is based on declared wealth. It is possible that today the richest are not less rich but rather that they are hiding much of their wealth. This paper proposes a method to measure this hidden wealth, in any form. In England, 1920-1992, elites are concealing 20-32% of their wealth. Among dynasties, hidden wealth, independent of declared wealth, predicts appearance in the Offshore Leaks Database of 2013-6, house values in 1999, and Oxbridge attendance, 1990-2016. Accounting for hidden wealth eliminates one-third of the observed decline of top 10% wealth-share over the past century

Keywords: hidden wealth; inequality; economic history; big data; tax evasion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 H26 N00 N33 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-iue
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/102830/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Hidden Wealth (2019)
Working Paper: Hidden wealth (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:102830

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