Malaysia Household Wealth Distribution: Current Evidence and Future Prospects

Abstract

The paper studies the distribution and inequality of wealth among the household per capita in Malaysia, using the 2007 Malaysia’s Household Income Survey (HIS) data. Consistent with findings from other countries, the distribution of wealth is more skewed than that of income. The distribution of wealth shows that the top 10% of Malaysian households per capita control 35% of the country’s wealth, while the bott om 40% own 8%. The decomposition of wealth shows that the Gini coefficient for savings is 0.98, while the figure for investment assets and real estate assets are 0.90 and 0.52 respectively. It is expected that wealth inequality will widen in the future due to several factors such as liberalization of the higher education policy and pro-rich tax treatment.   Keywords: Inequality, Malaysia, wealth.