Global Wealth Inequality on WID.world: Estimates and Imputations

First, we use the trends from the predictions to extend to the entire period of interest the series that are only observed for part of the period. [...] In order to recover the number of Forbes billionaires, we rescale the top of the distribution with Forbes data, assuming that aggregate wealth is unchanged and the distribution within the non-billionaire group is unchanged.2 By doing so we are able to produce series that are consistent with rich lists. [...] The above method increases the gap between the top of the distribution and the rest, even though the global middle 40% remain relatively unaffected by the changes. [...] In cases where we add the difference between Forbes and WID.world benchmark series, the same amount is subtracted proportionately to each group of the bottom 99.999% to keep aggregate wealth constant and to keep the relative shares inside the rest of the distribution unchanged. [...] 5.1 Wealth Aggregates To provide wealth aggregates series for all countries around the world, we have clustered countries in five groups depending on the availability of data for financial and non-financial assets of the private and the public sectors.