The Danish one percent

A tiny fraction of the population owns over one third of the country’s assets

Sep 1, 2014

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.

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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