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Wealth Inequality: Historical Trends and Cross‐National Differences
Author(s) -
Kus Basak
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12378
Subject(s) - inequality , perspective (graphical) , politics , stock (firearms) , wealth distribution , sociology , positive economics , distribution (mathematics) , economics , neoclassical economics , political science , history , law , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science
This article provides an overview of the recent literature on wealth inequality from a comparative and historical perspective. I first discuss how the stock , composition , and distribution of wealth changed from the 18 th century onwards. In the second part of the paper, I move on to the causal questions: What factors drive wealth inequality? Why does the distribution of wealth vary across nations? In the third and concluding section I briefly discuss the socio‐political challenges posed by increasing wealth inequality, and identify several key questions for research going forward.