page_title: Economic inequality
section_title: Wealth concentration
hierarchical_section_title: Economic inequality / Various proposed causes of economic inequality / Wealth concentration
caption_attribution_description: Jeff Bezos at the ENCORE awards.
context_page_description: There are a wide variety of types of economic inequality, most notably measured using the distribution of income and the distribution of wealth. Besides economic inequality between countries or states, there are important types of economic inequality between different groups of people.
  Important types of economic measurements focus on wealth, income, and consumption. There are many methods for measuring economic inequality, with the Gini coefficient being a widely used one. Another type of measure is the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, which is a statistic composite index that takes inequality into account. Important concepts of equality include equity, equality of outcome, and equality of opportunity.
  Research suggests that greater inequality hinders economic growth, with land and human capital inequality reducing growth more than inequality of income. Whereas globalization has reduced global inequality, it has increased inequality within nations.
context_section_description: Wealth concentration is the process by which, under certain conditions, newly created wealth concentrates in the possession of already-wealthy individuals or entities. Accordingly, those who already hold wealth have the means to invest in new sources of creating wealth or to otherwise leverage the accumulation of wealth, and thus they are the beneficiaries of the new wealth. Over time, wealth concentration can significantly contribute to the persistence of inequality within society. Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century argues that the fundamental force for divergence is the usually greater return of capital (r) than economic growth (g), and that larger fortunes generate higher returns.
caption: As of 2019, Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world.
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