Income, Wealth, Capital, Tax
How income and wealth are divided, why the division moves, and what actually changed it. Live World Bank Gini across the full country roster, joined with 250 years of Piketty and World Inequality Database reconstructions of capital, top shares, inheritance and tax.
Where Inequality Stands Now
Live World Bank Gini for every country in the roster, ranked. Survey years differ by country and faded bars flag the stale ones — a single "latest Gini" table is one of the easiest places to accidentally compare 2023 against 2011.
r > g: The Central Contradiction
Piketty's thesis in one chart: the return on capital has sat near 4-5% for two millennia while growth only briefly exceeded it during the 20th century. Whenever r runs above g, inherited wealth compounds faster than earned income.
The Kuznets Curve and Its Refutation
Kuznets (1955) argued inequality rises then falls as economies industrialise. The cross-section of GDP per capita against Gini shows the inverted U is at best a weak tendency — rich countries span Gini 25 to 45.
Income Concentration
Top 1%, top 10% and bottom 50% income shares from 1910 to today, plus Milanovic's elephant curve of who actually gained from globalisation. The US and UK trace a U; France, Japan and Sweden do not.
Wealth Concentration
Wealth is roughly twice as concentrated as income in every country measured, and its composition differs sharply — housing dominates European balance sheets while financial and business assets dominate American ones.
Two Centuries of Dynamics
Capital/income ratios from 1700, inheritance flows as a share of national income, and the milestones that compressed or widened the distribution. The egalitarian mid-20th century was produced by war, inflation and policy, not by markets.