Evolution of Wealth Inequality

What changes in wealth equality will the information revolution bring? Data from anthropology suggest that as communities change their technology from foraging to farming to factory to faxes, wealth is distributed less equitably. The table shows this greater wealth inequality measured by the peakness of the distribution (kurtosis) and the Gini coefficient. The larger the wealth concentration number the greater wealth inequality. For this example community size is a surrogate for technology.


Community wealth distortion and concentration values.

Community     No  Wealth Unit		Wealth Concentration


	    Households			Kurtosis   Gini Coeff


Horailenda    63  pigs/household	  -0.4	   0.34
Utatuu 	      30  wealth index/farm	   0.6	   0.59
Mohoweto      94  pigs/household	   0.7	   0.71
Yadaw 	     123  acres/household	   0.8	   0.59
Nondwin       82  acres/household	   7.5	   0.54
Botukebo      55  beads/individual	  15.5	   0.78
Tepoztlan    853  wealth score/family	  18.2	   0.58
Medong 	     255  acres/family		  19.6	   0.66
Arunpur      141  bighas/household	  48.1	   0.75
Siuai 	     220  spans/household	  52.7	   0.69
Oxfordshire  631  land value/owner	 171.0	   0.96
Basel 	    2536  size of estate	  47.1	   0.84
London 	   10735  pounds/household	 207.5	   0.87
Boston 	    2298  taxable wealth/man	 291.4	   0.77
Washington  7091  net worth/decedent	1494.1	   0.95
For details see: Smith(1991:54)

Also see: Smith 1991 and 1980

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Updated:Friday, 26-Jan-1996 17:05:40 PST
URL is http://www.orst.edu/instruct/anth484/wealtab.html