Where Wealth is Concentrated

 Where Billionaire Wealth is Concentrated

The combined wealth of the top five richest men has more than doubled since 2020, increasing from $405 billion to $869 billion. In that time frame, almost five billion people have seen their wealth decrease. This is according to Oxfam’s Inequality Inc. report, released to coincide with the kick off of the Davos summit, an annual meeting of the business and political elite.

As the following chart shows, only 20 percent of the world’s population lives in the Global North. Despite this, nearly 70 percent of all private wealth, and 74 percent of the world's billionaire wealth, is concentrated there. The five richest billionaires today, according to Forbes, are LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffet, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

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According to the report, as many as seven in ten of the world’s biggest companies are run by a billionaire, or have a main shareholder who is a billionaire. Huge corporations are winning out too, as Oxfam’s analysts explain: “the biggest firms experienced an 89 percent leap in profits in 2021 and 2022. New data shows that 2023 is set to shatter all records as the most profitable yet. Eighty-two percent of these profits are used to benefit shareholders, who are overwhelmingly among the richest people in every society.”

Where the World's Ultrawealthy Reside

There were a total of 395,070 ultra wealthy individuals worldwide last year, according to Altrata's World Ultra Wealth 2023 report. This was a 5.4 percent drop from one year before and the first downturn since 2018. Following record highs in recent years, combined net worth similarly fell by 5.5 percent to $45.4 trillion.

While North America is still the world region with the highest number of ultra wealthy people at 142,990 individuals, Asia follows in second place with 108,370 and Europe in third place with 100,850.

As the following chart shows, Asia’s ultra rich population fell by 10.9 percent in 2022, marking the biggest proportional year-on-year decline of any region worldwide. Reasons cited by analysts include the impacts of China’s strict Covid policies as well as the fallout from the war in Ukraine, which, they write, impacted exports and consumption, disrupted regional supply chains and depressed stocks, especially in tech-heavy markets such as South Korea and Taiwan. Europe also recorded a fairly significant fall in its number of ultra wealthy people in this time frame (-7.1 percent to 100,850 people).

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The ten countries with the highest numbers of ultra wealthy people, who each have a net worth in excess of $30 million, include: the United States (129,665), China (47,190), Germany (19,590), Japan (14,940), United Kingdom (14,005), Canada (13,320), Hong Kong (12,615), France (11,980), Italy (8,930) and India (8,880). Of these, India was the only country to record an increase in its ultra wealthy population year-on-year (+3.2 percent), while all others saw declines. Hong Kong and Japan saw the greatest negative percent change in their ultra wealthy populations, at -23% and -21.9 percent, respectively.