Average Net Worth of Billionaires by Country: 2013 Hurun Rich List

B. C. Forbes, the founder of Forbes magazine, published the most authoritative and first ever list of 30 wealthiest Americans on March 2, 1918. John D Rockefeller, Americas first billionaire, heads this first ever list, with a fortune of $1.2 billion. Then, in 1982 Forbes started publishing the list of 400 wealthiest Americans which changed the way Americans look at the very rich. The first 400 list in 1982 had only 13 billionaires and a net worth $75 million was enough to secure a spot, Ref. [4]. By 2006, all 400 spots were occupied by billionaires. Following the financial crisis of 2008, when many billionaires saw their fortunes plunge, the minimum net worth to enter the list had fallen below $1 billion (to $950 million) but was back up to $1 billion by 2010; see Ref. [4]. In 2011, the price for entry was $1.05 billion, Ref. [5].

Table 1: Comparison of the Forbes and Hurun Rich lists

Forbes 2013 Hurun 2013 Billionaires Rich List Worldwide billionaires, N 1426 1453 Number of countries 64 56 Combined worldwide wealth, UN $5.425 trillion $5.491 trillion US billionaires, N 442 409 US combined net worth, UN $1.872 trillion $1.712 trillion Chinese billionaires, N 122 317 Chinese combined net worth $262.91 billion $810.1 billion About $550 billion added to Chinese wealth and $160 billion taken away from US wealth, implying a significant difference in the wealth distribution among billionaires from the other countries (56 versus 64) in these two lists. In 1999, Rupert Hoogewerf established the Shanghai based Hurun Report which started providing the China Rich List. It has since become a prestigious and highly sought after list. People often arent considered truly rich until
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anointed by Hurun Report said The Wall Street Journal US Edition Jan 2008 , see Ref. [13]. According to the 2013 Hurun Rich List, there are 1453 billionaires worldwide, with a combined net worth of $5.491 trillion. The US again heads the Hurun list with 409 billionaires, with China being a close second with 317 billionaires. The Forbes 2013 Billionaires list, on the other hand, lists 442 US billionaires (33 more than Hurun) and 122 Chinese billionaires (a very significant discrepancy of 195 billionaires). The total worldwide count was 1426, only 27 less than the Hurun count. The combined net worth as reported by Forbes was $5.4 trillion which is close to the Hurun estimate. The net worth of the US billionaires was $1.87 trillion according to Forbes and $1.712 trillion according to Hurun. These results indicate that there is a very significant difference in the pattern of distribution of the nearly the same total wealth among different countries, other than the US. Hence, the main purpose here is to provide a comparison between the wealth distribution pattern between the Forbes and the Hurun billionaires in different countries. Table 2 is a compilation of the combined net worth for each country that I was able to prepare since a Microsoft Excel file, with the full list and all pertinent details is available for review and analysis. The same is presented, after sorting alphabetically, in Table 3. These results can be compared with a similar tabulation prepared recently for the Forbes 2013 billionaire list, see Durgy in Ref. [15] and the more detailed list I have prepared for the average billionaire worth by country in Refs. [1618], and reproduced here as Table 4. A more detailed analysis of the data compiled here, using x-y diagrams (Combined net worth versus number of billiionaires) is being presented separately.

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Table 2: Average Net Worth of Billionaires by Country Data from the Hurun 2013 Rich List, Sorted by U
Rank by U = y/x Avg. NW Country Billionaires N=x Combined net worth UN = y Average net worth U = UN/N = y/x

See similar list in Ref. [18] with the2013 Forbes Billionaires Data 1 Mexico 7 118.5 16.93 2 Colombia 1 14.0 14.00 3 Chile 5 42.1 8.42 4 France 31 251.4 8.11 5 Monaco 4 31.2 7.80 6 Sweden 7 54.0 7.71 7 Saudi Arabia 9 64.3 7.14 8 Georgia 1 6.4 6.40 9 Spain 14 88.3 6.31 10 N Zealand 1 6.0 6.00 11 Thailand 5 28.4 5.68 12 Nigeria 4 22.4 5.60 13 Germany 61 311.5 5.11 14 Czech Rep 2 10.0 5.00 15 Switzerland 41 190.0 4.63 16 Italy 14 60.9 4.35 17 Russia 88 368.6 4.19 18 USA 409 1,712.3 4.19 19 Brazil 33 133.8 4.05 20 Austria 17 67.7 3.98 21 Philippines 6 23.5 3.92 22 Malaysia 9 35.1 3.90 23 Denmark 3 11.7 3.90 24 Australia 16 62.0 3.88 25 S. Africa 4 15.4 3.85 26 Venezuela 2 7.6 3.80 27 Canada 22 77.8 3.54 28 India 53 181.2 3.42 29 UK 55 187.2 3.40 30 Japan 22 73.9 3.36
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Rank by U = y/x Avg. NW

Country

Billionaires N=x

Combined net worth UN = y

Average net worth U = UN/N = y/x

31 Belgium 2 6.7 3.35 32 Liechtenstein 1 3.3 3.30 33 Israel 10 30.0 3.00 34 Romania 1 2.8 2.80 35 Ireland 5 13.9 2.78 36 UAE 8 21.7 2.71 37 Greece 1 2.7 2.70 38 Indonesia 11 28.8 2.62 39 Singapore 11 28.7 2.61 40 Lebanon 3 7.7 2.57 41 China 317 810.1 2.56 42 Norway 4 10.1 2.53 43 Netherlands 11 27.1 2.46 44 Poland 5 11.9 2.38 45 Portugal 4 9.3 2.33 46 Taipei 32 74.1 2.32 47 Argentina 6 13.5 2.25 48 Ukraine 7 13.2 1.89 49 Turkey 31 56.1 1.81 50 Morocoo 3 5.4 1.80 51 S. Korea 17 30.6 1.80 52 Peru 2 3.4 1.70 53 Kazakhstan 5 8.2 1.64 54 Egypt 6 9.4 1.57 55 Kuwait 3 4.3 1.43 56 Cyprus 1 1.0 1.00 Total 1453 5491.2 Nigeria with 4 billionaires is ranked 12 by the average worth. In the Forbes list, Nigeria has only two billionaires and leads the list; see Table 4. Mexico with seven billionaires leads the list here. In the Forbes list, Mexico has 15 billionaires and is ranked No. 2 after Nigeria; see Table 4. The rank numbers in the first column are obtained after sorting the data by descending values of U, see also Table 4 for the Forbes billionaires.

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Table 3: Average Net Worth of Billionaires by Country Data from the Hurun 2013 Rich List (Alphabetical)
Rank by U = y/x Avg. NW 47 24 20 31 19 27 3 41 46 2 56 14 23 54 4 8 13 37 28 38 35 33 16 30 53 55 40 32 22 1 5 50 Country Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Canada Chile China Taipei (Taiwan) Colombia Cyprus Czech Rep Denmark Egypt France Georgia Germany Greece India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Japan Kazakhstan Kuwait Lebanon Liechtenstein Malaysia Mexico Monaco Morocoo Billionaires N=x 6 16 17 2 33 22 5 317 32 1 1 2 3 6 31 1 61 1 53 11 5 10 14 22 5 3 3 1 9 7 4 3 Combined net worth UN = y 13.5 62.0 67.7 6.7 133.8 77.8 42.1 810.1 74.1 14.0 1.0 10.0 11.7 9.4 251.4 6.4 311.5 2.7 181.2 28.8 13.9 30.0 60.9 73.9 8.2 4.3 7.7 3.3 35.1 118.5 31.2 5.4 Average net worth U = UN/N = y/x 2.250 3.875 3.982 3.350 4.055 3.536 8.420 2.556 2.316 14.000 1.000 5.000 3.900 1.567 8.110 6.400 5.107 2.700 3.419 2.618 2.780 3.000 4.350 3.359 1.640 1.433 2.567 3.300 3.900 16.929 7.800 1.800
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Rank by U = y/x Avg. NW

Country

Billionaires N=x

Combined net worth UN = y

Average net worth U = UN/N = y/x

43 10 12 42 52 21 44 34 17 7 39 25 51 9 6 15 11 49 36 29 48 18 26

Netherlands N Zealand Nigeria Norway Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore S. Africa S. Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Thailand Turkey UAE UK Ukraine USA Venezuela

11 1 4 4 2 6 5 4 1 88 9 11 4 17 14 7 41 5 31 8 55 7 409 2

27.1 6.0 22.4 10.1 3.4 23.5 11.9 9.3 2.8 368.6 64.3 28.7 15.4 30.6 88.3 54.0 190.0 28.4 56.1 21.7 187.2 13.2 1,712.3 7.6

2.464 6.000 5.600 2.525 1.700 3.917 2.380 2.325 2.800 4.189 7.144 2.609 3.850 1.800 6.307 7.714 4.634 5.680 1.810 2.713 3.404 1.886 4.187 3.800

The data is sorted alphabetically. The rank numbers in the first column are obtained after sorting the same data by descending U, see Table 2.

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Table 4: Average Net Worth of Billionaires by Country Full listing of billionaires and combined net worth
Rank by U = y/x Avg. NW 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Country Nigeria Mexico Saudi Arabia Colombia Sweden France Georgia Germany Spain Hong Kong Italy Malaysia Cyprus Chile Ireland USA Brazil Russia Switzerland Thailand Czech Rep South Africa Philippines Netherlands India Australia Austria United Kingdom Venezuela Ukraine Canada Singapore Billionaires N=x 2 15 8 5 14 24 1 58 20 39 23 10 3 14 5 442 46 110 13 10 4 6 11 6 55 22 8 37 1 10 29 10 Combined net worth UN = y 20.800 148.500 55.552 34.500 88.298 142.848 5.300 296.264 99.960 193.089 112.907 48.750 13.650 61.348 21.900 1872.312 189.290 427.130 50.297 38.600 14.900 22.002 39.853 21.252 193.600 73.106 26.504 121.101 3.267 32.100 92.046 31.600 Average net worth U = UN/N = y/x 10.400 9.900 6.944 6.900 6.307 5.952 5.300 5.108 4.998 4.951 4.909 4.875 4.550 4.382 4.380 4.236 4.115 3.883 3.869 3.86 3.725 3.667 3.623 3.542 3.520 3.323 3.313 3.273 3.267 3.210 3.174 3.160
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Rank by U = y/x Avg. NW

Country

Billionaires N=x

Combined net worth UN = y

Average net worth U = UN/N = y/x

33 Japan 22 68.398 3.109 34 Finland 1 3.100 3.100 35 Swaziland 1 3.100 3.100 36 Denmark 6 18.498 3.083 37 New Zealand 3 9.150 3.050 38 Belgium 2 5.800 2.900 39 Greece 3 8.601 2.867 40 Norway 6 17.100 2.850 41 Portugal 3 8.550 2.850 42 Taiwan 26 72.800 2.800 43 Israel 17 46.257 2.721 44 Egypt 7 18.550 2.650 45 Poland 4 9.800 2.450 46 United Arab Emirates 4 9.752 2.438 47 S. Korea 24 56.352 2.348 48 Lebanon 6 13.998 2.333 49 Peru 10 23.300 2.330 50 Argentina 5 11.100 2.220 51 Indonesia 25 55.250 2.210 52 Morocco 3 6.501 2.167 53 China 122 262.910 2.155 54 Angola 1 2.000 2.000 55 Kazakhstan 5 9.200 1.840 56 Turkey 43 74.218 1.726 57 St. Kitts & Nevis 1 1.500 1.500 58 Guernsey 1 1.500 1.500 59 Vietnam 1 1.500 1.500 60 Monaco 3 4.449 1.483 61 Kuwait 5 6.150 1.230 62 Romania 1 1.100 1.100 63 Belize 1 1.000 1.000 64 Nepal 1 1.000 1.000 The number of Forbes billionaires is obtained from Ref. [19], the Mapping of the Wealth, and the combined net worth x was computed from the average net worth y/x given in Ref. [20], The Average Billionaire Net Worth by Country.
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Reference List
1. The First Rich List, by Arik Hesseldahl and Claudia DeMairo, September 27, 2002, http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/27/0927richestphotos.html see also http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/27/0927richest.html The combined fortune of the 30 richest was $3,680,000,000 ($3.68 B) and the average net worth was $0.123 B ($122,666,666). The full list of the 30 richest men in 1918 may be found on page 15 of 17 of this article. 2. The Forbes 400: The Richest People in America, by Luisa Kroll, September 19, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2012/09/19/the-forbes-400-therichest-people-in-america/ Price of entry into this most exclusive club was $75 million (in 1982). This years entry fee is $1.1 billion (in 2012). 3. The Forbes 400, by Matthew Miller and Duncan Greenberg, September 17, 2008, http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/16/forbes-400-billionaires-lists400list08_cx_mn_0917richamericans_land.html The rich haven't gotten richer--or
poorer--this year. For the second year in a row, the price of admission to The Forbes 400 is $1.3 billion. In this, the 27th edition of the list, the assembled net worth of America's wealthiest rose by $30 billion--only 2%--to $1.57 trillion http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/16/forbes-

400-billionaires-lists-400list08_cx_mn_0917richamericans_land.html 4. The Forbes 400, by Matthew Miller, September 20, 2007, http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/forbes-400-introduction-listsrichlist07-cx_mm_0920richintro.html One billion dollars is no longer enough. The price
of admission to this, the 25th anniversary edition of the Forbes 400, is $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year. The collective net worth of the nation's mightiest plutocrats rose $290 billion to $1.54 trillion.

5. The 400 Richest Americans, by Matthew Miller and Tatiana Serafin, September 21, 2006, http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_The-400-RichestAmericans_land.html A nine-figure fortune wont get you much mention these days, at least
not here. This year, for the first time, everyone in The Forbes 400 has at least $1 billion. The collective net worth of the nations wealthiest climbed $120 billion, to $1.25 trillion.

6. The 400 Richest Americans, by Matthew Miller and Peter Newcomb, Sep 22, 2005, http://www.forbes.com/2005/09/19/400-richest-americans-

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2005-list_05rich400_land.html The lowest rank net worth was $900 million in 2005, full list is given here. 7. The Richest People in America, by Luisa Kroll, September 22, 2010, http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/21/forbes-400-gates-buffett-facebookrich-list-10-intro.html The price of admission to the 400 is back up to the $1 billion mark.
Last year it was $950 million, the first time since 2005 it had fallen below 10 figures.

8. The Forbes 400 Hall of Fame, by Sean Kilachand, Sep 20, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/seankilachand/2012/09/20/the-forbes400-hall-of-fame-36-members-of-our-debut-issue-still-in-ranks/ 9. The March of the 400, by William P. Barrett, September 30, 2002, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0930/400080.html 10. Forbes 400 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_400 11. The New Forbes 400 and their $1.5 Trillion, by Inequality.org Staff, September 25, 2011, http://inequality.org/forbes-400-15-trillion/ 12. All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make and Spend their wealth, http://www.amazon.com/All-Money-World-Make-SpendTheir/product-reviews/030727876X 13. The Hurun Report, http://www.hurun.net/hurun/aboutusen.aspx 14. Hurun Global Rich List, http://www.hurun.net/usen/Default.aspx A Microsoft Excel with the full list of 1453 billionaires is available at this website, which was downloaded, sorted by country of citizenship, and analyzed to prepare this article. 15. Average Billionaire Net Worth by Country: Full list, by Edwin Durgy, March 13, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2013/03/13/averagebillionaire-net-worth-by-country-full-list/ 16. Average Net Worth by Country - Part 1: Preliminary Analysis of the 2013 Forbes Billionaire Data, Published March 18, 2013. http://www.scribd.com/doc/131208984/The-Average-Net-Worth-byCountry-Part-I-Analysis-of-the-2013-Forbes-Billionaires-Data 17. Average Net Worth by Country - Part 2: Analysis of the 2013 Worlds Billionaire Data, to be Published March xx, 2013. 18. China has fewer billionaires than most other large countries, Published March 21, 2013,
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/131583456/China-Has-Fewer-BillionairesAccording-to-the-Billionaire-Net-Worth-Analysis 19. Mapping the Wealth of the Worlds Billionaires, by Luisa Kroll, March 9, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2013/03/09/mapping-thewealth-of-the-worlds-billionaires/ 20. The Worlds Billionaires, The Richest People on the Planet 2013, by Lusia Kroll and Kerry A. Dolan, March 4, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/ 21. Inside the 2013 Billionaires List: Facts and Figures, by Luisa Kroll, March 4, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2013/03/04/inside-the-2013billionaires-list-facts-and-figures/

Vj Laxmanan 2 weeks ago (Today is March 21, 2013)

Hi Luisa Kroll: As indicated in earlier comments, I got interested in the analysis of the rate at which billionaires are created in a population. I have now compiled my list of the number of billionaires for all 64 countries in the Forbes 2013 list. I did this by sorting the Forbes list by country and manual counting. It was easy since, when I sort, Forbes gives the list for each country separated into groups of 10 and then the remainder. So, I have double and triple checked and know that there cannot be any error. My total count of billionaires is 1424. The Forbes total count is 1426. Why the discrepancy of 2? I know it sounds ridiculous but mistakes are made. I have checked and checked but seems like there is no mistake in my count. (The Microsoft Excel program did the additions.) Are we missing a couple of smaller countries may be? Or, is there an error in the big countries listing? Would like to find out. Before I begin my analysis, I want to make sure that there are no errors in the count of the number of billionaires. Would appreciate your feedback. Thanks and regards.
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***************************************************** Please see the Tables in the link given here what I am trying to do. A more comprehensive update is what I am planning with all 64 countries. http://www.scribd.com/doc/128610494/The-Forbes-Billionaires-and-Calculus-Is-Einstein-sWork-Function-Observed-Here
Author

Luisa Kroll, Forbes Staff 2 weeks ago

First off, thanks so much for spending so much time with the list. I love it and love the analysis. My guess: Guernsey and St. Kitts. Did you have those? Ill be posting full list of countries later today. Its just been a bit crazy around here. More later and thanks again.

Called-out comment

Reply

Vj Laxmanan 2 weeks ago

Thanks, look forward to itl. I get total 1424 billionaires but Forbes says 1426. I checked and checked and checked. My count seems correct. Where are those 2 guys from? They are not in the list of 64 countries I see. Cheers!

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About the author V. Laxmanan, Sc. D.

The author obtained his Bachelors degree (B. E.) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Poona and his Masters degree (M. E.), also in Mechanical Engineering, from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, followed by a Masters (S. M.) and Doctoral (Sc. D.) degrees in Materials Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. He then spent his entire professional career at leading US research institutions (MIT, Allied Chemical Corporate R & D, now part of Honeywell, NASA, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and General Motors Research and Development Center in Warren, MI). He holds four patents in materials processing, has co-authored two books and published several scientific papers in leading peer-reviewed international journals. His expertise includes developing simple mathematical models to explain the behavior of complex systems. While at NASA and CWRU, he was responsible for developing material processing experiments to be performed aboard the space shuttle and developed a simple mathematical model to explain the growth Christmas-tree, or snowflake, like structures (called dendrites) widely observed in many types of liquid-to-solid phase transformations (e.g., freezing of all commercial metals and alloys, freezing of water, and, yes, production of snowflakes!). This led to a simple model to explain the growth of dendritic structures in both the groundbased experiments and in the space shuttle experiments. More recently, he has been interested in the analysis of the large volumes of data from financial and economic systems and has developed what may be called the Quantum Business Model (QBM). This extends (to financial and economic systems) the mathematical arguments used by Max Planck to develop quantum physics using the analogy Energy = Money, i.e., energy in physics is like money in economics. Einstein applied Plancks ideas to describe the photoelectric effect (by treating light as being composed of particles called photons, each with the fixed quantum of energy conceived by Planck). The mathematical law deduced
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by Planck, referred to here as the generalized power-exponential law, might actually have many applications far beyond blackbody radiation studies where it was first conceived. Einsteins photoelectric law is a simple linear law and was deduced from Plancks non-linear law for describing blackbody radiation. It appears that financial and economic systems can be modeled using a similar approach. Finance, business, economics and management sciences now essentially seem to operate like astronomy and physics before the advent of Kepler and Newton. Finally, during my professional career, I also twice had the opportunity and great honor to make presentations to two Nobel laureates: first at NASA to Prof. Robert Schrieffer (1972 Physics Nobel Prize), who was the Chairman of the Schrieffer Committee appointed to review NASAs space flight experiments (following the loss of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986) and second at GM Research Labs to Prof. Robert Solow (1987 Nobel Prize in economics), who was Chairman of Corporate Research Review Committee, appointed by GM corporate management.

Cover page of AirTran 2000 Annual Report

Can you see that plane flying above the tall tree tops that make a nearly perfect circle? It requires a great deal of imagination to see and to photograph it.

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