Routes to the Top

Johannes König, Christian Schluter and Carsten Schröder
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Johannes König: DIW Berlin - Deutsche Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung = German Institute for Economic Research
Christian Schluter: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Southampton

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Abstract: Who makes it to the top? We use the leading socio-economic survey in Germany, supplemented by extensive data on the rich, to answer this question. We identify the key predictors for belonging to the top 1 percent of income, wealth, and both distributions jointly. Although we consider many, only a few traits matter: Entrepreneurship and self-employment in conjunction with a sizable inheritance of company assets is the most important covariate combination across all rich groups. Our data suggest that all top 1 percent groups, but especially the joint top 1 percent, are predominantly populated by intergenerational entrepreneurs.

Keywords: top wealth; top income; rich-group classification modeling; predictions; intergenerational transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05084522v1
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Published in Review of Income and Wealth, 2025, 71, ⟨10.1111/roiw.70015⟩

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Journal Article: Routes to the Top (2025)
Working Paper: Routes to the Top (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05084522

DOI: 10.1111/roiw.70015

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