UNU-WIDER Personal Assets from a Global Perspective

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Personal assets from a Global Perspective

Project name/title

Personal Assets from a Global Perspective

Year:

2005

Theme:

Poverty, Inequality and Well-being

Abstract:

The project aims to assemble data about the distribution and composition of personal assets in developing, transition, and developed countries and to study the implications of personal asset-holding for economic development. The most important asset types — financial assets, land and housing — will be given special attention. Life-cycle saving, self-insurance and other motives for saving, as well as their consequences for asset-holding, will also be studied, along with important issues and historical experiences, including gender dimensions, the informal sector, privatization programs in transition countries, and the impact of land registration schemes.

Keywords:

Personal wealth, assets, debts, property, world distribution of wealth, saving, land, housing, financial assets, physical capital, natural capital, livestock, privatization, collateral, land registration

Director:

• James B. Davies
  Project Director
• Anthony Shorrocks
  Former Director

Assistant:

• Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen 
  Publications and Information Assistant

Project Meetings

• 4 May 2006 Project meeting on Personal Assets from a Global Perspective 

Presentations

• 5 December 2006 Launch of the WIDER study on The World Distribution of Household Wealth

Publications:

• Asset Portfolios in Africa: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia
• Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China 1995-2002
• Concentration among the Rich
• The Distribution of Household Wealth in India
• Estimating the Balance Sheet of the Personal Sector in an Emerging Market Country: South Africa 1975-2003
• Estimating the Level and Distribution of Global Household Wealth
• The Evolution of Personal Wealth in the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe
• Gender and the Distribution of Wealth in Developing Countries
• Household Financial Assets in the Process of Development
• Household Wealth in Latin America
• Housing Privatization and Household Wealth in Transition
• Housing and Personal Wealth in a Global Context
• The Informal Sector in Developing Countries: Output, Assets and Employment
• Land Reform and Landholdings in Brazil
• Land Titles, Credit Markets and Wealth Distributions
• Long-Run Changes in the Concentration of Wealth: An Overview of Recent Findings
• Marketable Wealth in a Poor African Country: Using an index of consumer durables to investigate wealth accumulation by households in Ghana
• Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
• Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective (paperback)
• Survey Estimates of Wealth Holdings in OECD Countries: Evidence on the Level and Distribution across Selected Countries
• World Distribution of Household Wealth

Content:

Research Uptake Report 2012—Personal Assets from a Global Perspective.pdf (429.57 kilobytes)