Research Institute

PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ROTHIVAN
America (Chile, Costa Rica, Korea and Uruguay).
However, the adverse exchange rate movements
this year have been sufficient to push a number
of countries below the USD 25,000 threshold,
including Colombia, Malaysia and a quartet in
Europe (Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia).
Frontier wealth
The ‟frontier wealth” range from USD 5,000 to
25,000 per adult covers the largest area of the
world and most of the heavily populated countries
including China, Russia, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia,
the Philippines and Turkey. The band also contains
most of Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru and Venezuela), many countries bordering
the Mediterranean (Algeria, Jordan, Morocco,
Tunisia and West Bank and Gaza) and many transition
nations outside the EU (Albania, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia,
Mongolia and Serbia). South Africa was once
briefly a member of the intermediate wealth group,
but now resides in this category alongside other
leading sub-Saharan nations: Angola, Botswana,
Equatorial Guinea and Namibia. Sri Lanka, Thailand
and Vietnam are promising Asian members of the
group, alongside Malaysia which may well soon
return to the group above. As already noted, Lithuania,
Poland and Slovakia have fallen into the group
this year, joining another EU member, Latvia. Far
less movement was observed at the lower boundary,
although Bolivia bucked the general worldwide
trend by moving up into the frontier wealth band,
while Kyrgyzstan went in the opposite direction.
The final group of countries with wealth below
USD 5,000 is heavily concentrated in central
Africa and south Asia. This group encompasses
all of central Africa apart from Angola, Equatorial
Guinea and Gabon. India is the most notable
member of the Asia contingent, which also
includes Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal
and Pakistan. Languishing in the middle of this
wealth range are also three countries bordering
the EU: Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.
Distribution of wealth across individuals
and wealth inequality
To determine how global wealth is distributed
across households and individuals – rather than
regions or countries – we combine our data on the
level of household wealth across countries with
information on the pattern of wealth distribution
within countries. Once debts have been subtracted,
a person needs only USD 3,210 to be among the
wealthiest half of world citizens in mid-2015.
However, USD 68,800 is required to be a member
of the top 10% of global wealth holders, and
USD 759,900 to belong to the top 1%. While the
bottom half of adults collectively own less than 1%
of total wealth, the richest decile holds 87.7% of
assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for
half of total household wealth.
Last year’s report covered trends in wealth
inequality in detail. The shares of the top 1% and
Global Wealth Report 2015
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