© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15691497-12341253 PGDT 12 (2013) 246-265 brill.com/pgdt PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY Wealth Inequality and Stratiijication in the World Capitalist Economy Jenny Chesters University of Canberra E-mail: jenny.chesters@canberra.edu.au Abstract Social inequality is generally conceptualized in terms of economic disadvantage related to income, however this approach ignores another equally important dimension of social inequal- ity: wealth inequality. Drawing on world systems theory and a Marxist perspective on social class, in this article I examine the interrelationship between stratiijication in the world economy and stratiijication within national economies with a view to developing a global class schema. This examination of trends in the net worth and the location of the wealthiest individuals in the world indicate that the rapid expansion of the world economy in the past three decades has affected the global distribution of wealth with an increasing proportion of the transnational capitalist class residing in semi-peripheral nations. Keywords global wealth inequality, transnational capitalist class, billionaires Introduction Despite decades of research producing a plethora of studies examining social inequality related to the distribution of income, both within nations and between nations, scant attention has been given to inequalities in the distribu- tion of wealth. As Skopek and associates (2011) argue, wealth is a more compre- hensive measure of economic well-being. High levels of wealth can alleviate the disadvantages related to low incomes allowing individuals to maintain their standard of living. Furthermore, wealth secures the economic well-being of future generations and deijines social status more precisely than income. In the past, research into levels of wealth inequality, at both a national and global level, has been constrained by a lack of available data. Large scale sur- veys of wealth holdings typically miss the wealthiest individuals and as Keister (2000) notes the “wealthy have strong incentives to conceal their wealth” (p. 9). Although there has been no attempt to examine changes in levels of global