Wealth Inequality in Interwar Poland

Marcin Wroński

World Inequality Lab Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: In 1923 Poland introduced an extraordinary wealth tax. We use the internal statistics of the Ministry of the Treasury to estimate wealth inequality in interwar Poland. This data source has not been previously used by researchers. There are no estimates of wealth inequality in interwar Poland available in the literature. According to our estimates, the top 0.01% of the wealth distribution controlled 16.4% of total private wealth. The wealth share of the top 1% stood at 42.5%. The top decile owned 67.3% of total private wealth. Wealth inequality varied strongly across regions. A comparison of wealth inequality in Poland with wealth inequality in other European countries in the interwar period yields a diverse picture. The wealth share of the top 0.01% was the highest in Europe, the wealth share of the top 1% was in the middle of the European ranking, the wealth share of the top 10% was almost the lowest in Europe. The small elite of super-rich (0.01%) was very wealthy in comparison to the European peers, but the wealth share of the rest of the top decile was relatively low. The unequal development of former partitions may partially explain high very top wealth shares.

Keywords: wealth distribution; inequality; Poland; interwar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-tra
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Working Paper: Wealth Inequality in Interwar Poland (2022)
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