{"title":"Measuring top wealth shares in the UK","authors":"Arun Advani , Andy Summers , Hannah Tarrant","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105076","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine how the measurement of <em>aggregate</em> wealth affects our understanding of wealth distribution. We explain why choices over wealth aggregates can affect the measured level and composition of wealth concentration. Applying this to the UK, we find estimates of the top 1% wealth share vary by 2.1pp – between 14.4% and 16.5% – in 2016–18, depending on the choices we make regarding aggregates and the source of distributional information. Alternative definitions for aggregates lead to a reranking of who is at the top, replacing 40% of individuals in the top 1%, and changing the share of women and older individuals. We discuss conceptual and measurement issues with the National Accounts as a source of wealth aggregates, and argue that in many cases they are poorly aligned in both regards with the measure of personal wealth one would like to target, and in practice are less comparable internationally than they initially seem. In the UK, where the wealth survey has reasonably good coverage across the distribution, we therefore prefer survey aggregates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 105076"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Economic Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292125001266","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We examine how the measurement of aggregate wealth affects our understanding of wealth distribution. We explain why choices over wealth aggregates can affect the measured level and composition of wealth concentration. Applying this to the UK, we find estimates of the top 1% wealth share vary by 2.1pp – between 14.4% and 16.5% – in 2016–18, depending on the choices we make regarding aggregates and the source of distributional information. Alternative definitions for aggregates lead to a reranking of who is at the top, replacing 40% of individuals in the top 1%, and changing the share of women and older individuals. We discuss conceptual and measurement issues with the National Accounts as a source of wealth aggregates, and argue that in many cases they are poorly aligned in both regards with the measure of personal wealth one would like to target, and in practice are less comparable internationally than they initially seem. In the UK, where the wealth survey has reasonably good coverage across the distribution, we therefore prefer survey aggregates.
期刊介绍:
The European Economic Review (EER) started publishing in 1969 as the first research journal specifically aiming to contribute to the development and application of economics as a science in Europe. As a broad-based professional and international journal, the EER welcomes submissions of applied and theoretical research papers in all fields of economics. The aim of the EER is to contribute to the development of the science of economics and its applications, as well as to improve communication between academic researchers, teachers and policy makers across the European continent and beyond.