Where's the World's Wealth?

The World Institute for Development Economics Research has just released a new study on "The World Distribution of Household Wealth." Unlike the measure of "income," the measure of "wealth" considers household assets and resources. According to the findings of the study, "the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth." (The .pdf version of the report is a rich resource.) Consider the following graphical depictions of just a couple elements: