Household Wealth in Latin America

This study provides a descriptive analysis of wealth ownership and wealth inequality in Latin American countries, using diverse published sources and primary data analysis for sixteen nations. This chapter presents estimates of the distribution of home ownership, land, and financial assets, and find very high wealth concentration in all these types of assets, with the partial exception of home ownership. The relevance of informal assets and the historical patterns of wealth accumulation and concentration since colonial times are discussed. Mechanisms of intergenerational wealth transmission are analysed for the Chilean case.