> In the US, the Forbes 400 has about 2% of total household wealth. The
> top 1/2% have about 31% of nonresidential net worth, and the next
> 1/2% about 9%.
I'm glad you're going into this. In the 70s I found myself working on a case that involved offshore trusts, and got a quick look into phenomenal amounts of wealth wholly obscured to inquiry - especially governmental inquiry. Unless there were some convincing showing that the relative amounts have since decreased or become more available to inquiry (I've not kept up with this at all), I'd think there'd be a strong argument that attempts to measure changes over time (if not totally futile) could never yield better than very gross approximations.
john mage