The Distribution of Wealth

The Distribution of Wealth is the first book to provide a comprehensive treatment of the personal distribution of wealth. Michael Schneider uses data from fifteen countries to demonstrate how inequality in the distribution of wealth both varies between different parts of the world and changes over time, before going on to discuss why the distribution of wealth is unequal, whether it should be unequal, and how it could be changed. The book focuses on:

• alternative ways of measuring the degree to which distribution is unequal
• assessment of the relative importance of the various determinants of the distribution of wealth
• comparison of the distributions implied by alternative views of society
• discussion of means by which the distribution of wealth could be altered, and of whether or not a redistribution in a less unequal direction would in time reduce the amount of wealth available to be distributed.

This book will be valued and read with interest by economists, particularly those in the fields of welfare economics, distribution theory, heterodox economics and the history of economic thought, as well as sociologists, political scientists and philosophers.