Inheritance and Wealth Inequality in Britain by Harbury Colin;Hitchins David;

Author:Harbury, Colin;Hitchins, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Accumulation and Dissipation

The analysis of the forward tracing samples permitted conclusions to be drawn on the accumulation and dissipation of fortunes. On the assumption of equal division of fathers’ estates, approximately two-thirds turned out to be dissipators, leaving less than their share, and one-third accumulators.

Notes

1 Explanations of the nature of the data and analytical processes are described only briefly here; for full details refer to Chapter 2 above, and in particular Table 2.2. p. 12, where the different samples are described. It should be noted that although the wealth of the successors of the 1924–6 sample is considered in this chapter, a number of the predecessors of those dying rich in 1924–6 were also traced, and their wealth is analysed in Chapter 4.

2 These issues have been dealt with in Chapter 2.

3 Duty was not payable on estates of less than £15,000 in 1973, and therefore data at Somerset House are only complete above this level of wealth (and therefore representative of the living population) except where there is a surviving spouse and the limit is raised to £30,000.

4 See Chapter 2, p.28.

5 The statistical test undertaken was the t-test on proportions.

6 See Chapter 2 for a fuller explanation of the categories.

7 See Chapter 2, pp.32–4 for an explanation of how Table 3.6 was constructed.

8 Those proportions which are statistically significantly different are marked with asterisks.

9 Table 3.6 is in current prices. Comparisons of 1973 with 1956–7 involves deflation. Roughly the estate size of £50,000 in 1973 is equivalent to £25,000 in constant prices and the probability is therefore 0-348 per cent.

10 The effect of missing sons’ wealth on the findings and comparability with those of the 1902 sample is available as a separate paper from the authors.

11 There is clearly a question of what weights should be given for differing family size and whether to count daughters as well as sons in the calculations. A decision was necessary to keep the amount of work in tabulations minimal unless there were clear and substantial reasons for doing otherwise. The decision taken did not appear to be any less sensible than alternatives. Moreover, in some cases where fathers had no sons nephews have been substituted.

12 The choice of this percentile is arbitrary and makes little difference to the following analysis.

13 Methods of estimating the minima for the years 1900–73 are given in Appendix C.

14 It was not possible to estimate minima for the years before 1900.

15 The proportions of fathers in the top 1 per cent and 5 per cent of the wealth distribution cannot be precisely estimated from Table 3.8, but in view of the nature of the data it is unnecessary to attach any precise significance to the multiples given. The reason why the minimum wealth of the top 1 per cent and of the top 5 per cent of wealth holders is not a direct multiple of that of the minimum wealth of the top 10 per cent is that the degree of inequality in wealth has changed over time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.