Top wealth and its historical origins: An analysis of Germany's largest privately held fortunes in 2019

Daria Tisch and Emma Ischinsky

No 23/1, MPIfG Discussion Paper from Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Abstract: Rising wealth inequality is both a topic in recent policy discussion and in the social sciences. Despite the general interest in wealth concentration, we know only little about the largest privately held fortunes. To help fill this gap we analyze the historical origins of Germany's 1,032 largest fortunes in 2019. In particular, we identify the share of entrenched fortunes - fortunes which date back to the beginning of the twentieth century - and ask to what extent they differ from more recently established ones. Furthermore, we examine in an exploratory way if entrenched fortunes are connected to fortunes with more recent origins through family lines. We use a journalistic rich list published by the manager magazin in 2019, which we link with both rich lists from 1912/1914 and Wikidata. We find that about eight percent of today's fortunes can be traced back to fortunes held by the same families in 1913. Regression analyses show that entrenched fortunes rank on average higher on the rich list than the remaining ones. Descriptive network analyses indicate that some of today's largest fortunes are intertwined through marital lines, hinting at social closure at the top. Our findings indicate that the accumulation and perpetuation of fortunes over many generations is an important feature of top wealth in Germany.

Keywords: elite; family; inheritance; network analysis; super-rich; wealth perpetuation; Elite; Erbschaft; Familie; Netzwerkanalyse; Reichtum; Vermögen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg, nep-his and nep-net
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:231

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