UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- The United Nations says the world's richest two percent own more than half of household wealth while the poorer half control just one percent.
The U.N. University has released the first-of-its-kind study which also shows much of the wealth is concentrated in North America, Europe and rich Asia-Pacific nations such as Japan, Australia and South Korea, despite their comparatively small populations, when measured against Africa and countries such as China and India.
To belong to the richest one per cent in the world, more than $500,000 in wealth was needed -- enough for about 37 million people to qualify, said the report released Tuesday.
The UNU's World Institute for Development Economics Research, known as WIDER, said it covered all countries and all major components of household wealth, including financial assets, debts and tangible property such as land and buildings. It was based on data collected in 2000 and analyzed since.
James Davies, of the University of Western Ontario, Anthony Shorrocks and Susanna Sandstrom, of UNU-WIDER, and Edward Wolff of New York University wrote the report. They defined wealth for the survey as the value of physical and financial assets less debts.
"In this respect, wealth represents the ownership of capital," they said. "Although capital is only one part of personal resources, it is widely believed to have a disproportionate impact on household well-being and economic success, and more broadly on economic development and growth."
The study calculated global household wealth amounted to $125 trillion in 2000, or roughly $20,500 per person. But global inequities meant the average wealth was much higher in Japan, $181,000, and the United States, $144,000, than it was in India at $1,100 per adult, or Indonesia's $1,400.
