Varieties of economic elites? Preliminary results from the World Elite Database (WED)

Bühlmann, Felix, Christesen, Caroline Ahler, Cousin, Bruno, Denord, François, Ellersgaard, Christoph Houman, Lagneau‐Ymonet, Paul, Larsen, Anton Grau, Savage, Mike ORCID: 0000-0003-4563-9564, Thine, Sylvain, Young, Kevin, Araujo, Pedro, Arrigoni, Paola, Atria, Jorge, Benz, Pierre, Behr, Johanna, Botelho, Maria do Carmo, Butt, Asif, Casanova, Pedro, Clemente‐Casinhas, Luís, Castellani, Ana, Cescon, Fabio, Dagnes, Joselle, Debska, Hanna, Delval, Anne‐Sophie, Dragun, Vitalina, Egas, Andreia, Emilsson, Kajsa, Fan, Xiaoguang, Fu, Fan, Gentile, Julia, Gomes, Orlando, Gronwald, Victoria, Heredia, Mariana, Hjellbrekke, Johannes, Honório, Jorge, Huang, Jie, Inkley, Johnathan, Johansson, Håkan, Koiranen, Ilkka, Koivula, Aki, Kuusela, Hanna, Levita, Gabriel, Ling, Chao, Lu, Peng, Lukas, Michael, Lunding, Jacob, Mahmoudzadeh, Mina, McQuade, Sean, Méndez, María Luisa, Nunes, Nuno, O'Brien, Shay, Otero, Gabriel, Pagnini, Marta, Pelfini, Alejandro, Pereira, Jéssica, Roa, Catalina, Rossier, Thierry, Saga, Marte Lund, Santana, Dulce, Schneickert, Christian, Schimpfössl, Elisabeth, Schoenberger, François, Solipa, Izaura, Trembaczowski, Łukasz, Toft, Maren, Vale, Sofia, Vasconcelos, Pedro, Velazco, Jorge Quesada, Warczok, Tomasz and Yu, Xinguo (2025) Varieties of economic elites? Preliminary results from the World Elite Database (WED). British Journal of Sociology. ISSN 0007-1315

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Abstract

The strategies, decisions and beliefs of those who occupy prominent positions of economic power have influence on very large corporations and the markets they dominate, on vast amounts of economic resources, and on the rules of the game. However, the sociology of elites faces a dual challenge: divergent conceptualisations of what can be considered as a position of economic power and internationally incompatible sources of information hinder comparative analysis. The World Elite Database (WED) addresses this dual challenge, by generating, based on a consistent definition, standardised data for 16 countries. This research note introduces WED, its construction principles, and presents preliminary findings on how economic elites differ across countries.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	International Inequalities Institute Sociology
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Date Deposited:	01 Apr 2025 09:27
Last Modified:	21 Apr 2025 16:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127763

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