What Would Really Change the Wealth Distribution - New Simulator, New ReBalance Page

When it comes to questions of richness and poverty, emotions are always involved – as are heated arguments about what really helps to reduce inequality. But until now, it has been largely unknown what certain policies would really change about the distribution of wealth.

In a multi-year project, the Forum New Economy is working with leading international and national inequality experts to find reliable answers to this question – based on increasingly better data and broader knowledge. Following a phase of three studies, which primarily focused on the current state of knowledge and a hierarchisation of the causes of inequality, the aim is now to gain a better understanding of possible instruments for reducing wealth inequality.

Would the share of the richest be noticeably smaller in ten years’ time if a 2 per cent wealth tax were introduced? Or would there be more change if every 20-year-old was given a state start-up capital of 20,000 euros? In the future, anyone will be able to calculate the effects of these and other measures – with the interactive wealth simulator ReBalance.

To this end, we have commissioned a group of researchers led by Timm Bönke and Charlotte Bartels to develop a simulation model in an intensive steering process that makes it possible to assess the impact of various instruments against inequality.