Jul 5, 2026 · 17 min · 7 segments
UBS economists Paul Donovan and James Mazeau discuss the findings of the 17th edition of the annual report, which has become a crucial reference point on the trends shaping wealth across the world…
Paul DonovanGuest
James MazeauGuestTom EdwardsHostJust start by telling us where this piece sits in the, in the pantheon of reports that we get to enjoy produced by you and your colleagues.
Well, so one of the great frustrations in economics is that so much of the data is focused on change and on flow.
So if you think about something like GDP, I mean, that's measuring your growth in an economy in, in a year, or we, you know, have income data and things like that.
In many cases, we don't have data at all on stocks, so the stock of wealth in the economy is not properly measured in, in nearly every case.
So what we are attempting to do here is to, using mathematical models, using what data we do have, using informed opinions around the, the subject of wealth to try and come up with an idea about how much stock of wealth, how much we own there is in the world economy.
And the importance of that is that although, you know, everyone gets excited about the flows, and that does tend to be the focus, but the stock of wealth does play an important role.
It's done so this year in 2026, where the stock of wealth that we've accumulated in past years that households had at the end of 2025 has reassured investors.
It's allowed investors to cut back on savings rates to meet the higher oil prices that came out of the Gulf War.
In the United States, it helped investors cut back on savings to pay for the tariffs that were being imposed.
So wealth is really, really important to, you know, understanding how the economy works.
But because there's very little proper data on it, what we need is to do some sort of rigorous modeling analysis to come up with those numbers, and that's what we are attempting to do with the Global Wealth Report.
Just start by telling us where this piece sits in the, in the pantheon of reports that we get to enjoy produced by you and your colleagues.
Well, so one of the great frustrations in economics is that so much of the data is focused on change and on flow.
So if you think about something like GDP, I mean, that's measuring your growth in an economy in, in a year, or we, you know, have income data and things like that.
In many cases, we don't have data at all on stocks, so the stock of wealth in the economy is not properly measured in, in nearly every case.
So what we are attempting to do here is to, using mathematical models, using what data we do have, using informed opinions around the, the subject of wealth to try and come up with an idea about how much stock of wealth, how much we own there is in the world economy.
And the importance of that is that although, you know, everyone gets excited about the flows, and that does tend to be the focus, but the stock of wealth does play an important role.
It's done so this year in 2026, where the stock of wealth that we've accumulated in past years that households had at the end of 2025 has reassured investors.
It's allowed investors to cut back on savings rates to meet the higher oil prices that came out of the Gulf War.
In the United States, it helped investors cut back on savings to pay for the tariffs that were being imposed.
So wealth is really, really important to, you know, understanding how the economy works.
But because there's very little proper data on it, what we need is to do some sort of rigorous modeling analysis to come up with those numbers, and that's what we are attempting to do with the Global Wealth Report.
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