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The Danish one percent
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September 1st, 2014
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A tiny fraction of the population owns over one third of the country’s assets
Around 1 percent of the population, some 46,000 Danes, own property and securities worth over 512 billion kroner – 32 percent of the nation’s 1.6 trillion kroner’s worth of assets.
According to research quoted in Politiken newspaper from the centre-left think-tank Cevea, the 1 percent also controls 40 percent of the stocks and bonds traded in the country.
“There is a massive concentration of wealth in the richest one percent,” Jens Jonatan Steen, the head of research at Cevea, told Politiken.
“To a large degree, they have inherited their wealth or invested well.”
Tax the rich
Steen believes this unequal distribution of wealth calls for higher taxes on inheritance and investments.
READ MORE: Danish shares are the most expensive in the world
Mads Lundby Hansen, the chief economist at the liberal think-tank Cepos, disagreed with that assessment.
"You have to remember that the highest 1 percent of earners already pay taxes that correspond to those of 100,000 public employees," Hansen told Politiken.
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