Varieties of wealth
Toward a Comparative Sociology of Wealth Inequality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4237669 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jens Beckert (0000-0002-0892-9506, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 475-499 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mwad068 |
| OpenAlex | W4390243279 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 75 |
Research on wealth inequality and wealth concentration has made much progress in establishing statistics on the distribution of private wealth, its historical development, and its components in a large set of countries. Yet, this research is less concerned with country-specific contexts that have an impact on the practical relevance of private wealth and its distribution. This article develops a framework for comparative research that is interested in this question. Starting from a typology that distinguishes six "capacities of wealth," it asserts that private assets can be more important, more powerful, or more tolerable, depending on the institutional regulation of the political economy, for example, limitations on private property rights, welfare state redistribution, the electoral system, and cultural patterns of wealth legitimation. Using the USA and Germany as exemplary cases, I show that such differences exist and are politically relevant and that investigating the practical significance of private wealth in different political economies would open up new research trajectories in wealth research
Distribution (mathematics · Distribution of wealth · Economic inequality · Economics · Inequality · Legitimation · Market economy · National wealth · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Politics · Private property · Public economics · Public good · Redistribution (election · Redistribution of income and wealth · Sociology · Typology · Welfare · Welfare state · Finance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Labour, capital, and the nordic health paradox
Introduction to the BJS Special Issue, 2026, Families and Wealth
The oligarchic wealth elite in Austria
The Invisible Super-Rich? A Quantitative Analysis of the Press Coverage of Germany’s Wealth Elite
Asset struggles
Everyday asset struggles
Who Gets to Lead Together? Considering the Uneven Terrains in Shared and Collective Leadership
Feeling better off? A multidimensional approach to perceived mobility across life domains
Where Income Becomes Wealth
The Political Economy of Optimal Taxation
Wealth
Le patrimoine
Wealth and Income Stratification by Social Class in Five European Countries
The end of the “tax taboo”? Left-wing parties and the politics of taxing the rich in Germany and the UK
From practice to structure
Family feelings
Pension financialization and workplace pension wealth inequality
Wealth as a Feminist Issue
Capital and the Family
The shift to stock-based compensation and gender inequality in wealth in the United States
Should social insurance programs count as wealth? Augmented wealth in research and policy
Qualities and Configurations of Insecurity in the United States and Spain
The wealth returns to a unionized career
Wealth and Democracy
Rival views of market society and other recent essays
Fear of falling
The Return of Inequality
Oligarchy
Capital without Borders
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Inherited Wealth
Beneficial Constraints
Varieties of Capitalism
Drift and conversion
The Dignity of Working Men
Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth
Outline of a Theory of Practice
Does Inequality Matter
Getting Rich
The Undeserving Rich
Inequality and the super-rich
Generations of Advantage. Multigenerational Correlations in Family Wealth
Unternehmerfamilien
Wealth Inequality
Financialisation and the Pension System
Verdient – Unverdient. Der öffentliche Diskurs um die Erbschaftssteuer in Deutschland und Österreich
Zur Entwicklung der Vermögensungleichheit in Deutschland
Class mobility across three generations in the U.S. and Germany
Housing policy and equality. Comparative study of tenure conversions and their effects
The long and short of it
Can ‘Baby Bonds’ Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America
The Correlation of Wealth across Generations
National patterns of income and wealth inequality
The three worlds of welfare capitalism
The American occupational structure
(N)one of us? The case for descriptive representation of the contemporary working class
Oligarchy in the United States
Political Finance in Comparative Perspective
Campaign Finance and American Democracy
Legislator Wealth and the Effort to Repeal the Estate Tax
Class in the 21st century
It's the Market
The German Model of Industrial Relations
German family capitalism in the 21st century
Financialization and income generation in the 21st century
Wealth Accumulation and Opportunity Hoarding
The Rise of the Super-Rich
The Wealth Inequality of Nations
Theoretical and methodological pathways for research on elites
Power, policy, and top income shares
The paradox of inequality
Rentier Capitalism
The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America
The Gift
Fragile Fortune
Winner-Take-All Politics
The One Percent
Durable Wealth
The Class Ceiling
Entrenchment
Ways to Richness
Inheritance and Inequality
Net Worth as an Aspect of Status
Justifying inherited wealth
Charismatic violence and the sanctification of the super-rich
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 22 |