The OP forgot to link this part of the article:
"The following nations have reported national wealth statistics. Making meaningful comparisons is far from straightforward as the methodology in compiling them varies."
Basically, the value aside from Russia and Switzerland is the reported figure by each nation and different nations have different method to calculate national wealth.
Two points to this thread, and @
VCheng 's questioning of the relevance.
1) Total wealth matters, not just growth rates: "Taking a broader perspective, our analysis suggests that ten generations or more have to lapse before the wealth of an individual in North America is completely independent of the wealth of their
ancestors. From a global point of view, individuals in China and India have a relatively high probability to be upwardly mobile as a result of the high economic growth in these countries." (Global Wealth Report 2013)
2) This is not about national wealth, but rather, the wealth of the people. Why did no one read the actual Credit Suisse report upon which the Wikipedia article is based? The conclusions are well-thought out and reasonable. From the very first page of the report, describing the methodology (Global Wealth Databook 2013):
We aim to provide the best available
estimates of the wealth holdings of households around the
world for the period since the year 2000. To be more precise, we are interested in the
distribution within and across nations of
individual net worth, defined as the marketable value of
financial assets plus non-financial assets (principally housing and land) less debts. No country in
the world has completely reliable information on personal wealth, and for many countries there is
little direct evidence. So we are obliged to assemble and process information from a variety of
different sources.
The procedure involves three main steps, the first two of which mimic the structure followed by
Davies et al (2008, 2011). The first step establishes the average level of wealth for each
country. The best source of data for this purpose is household balance sheet (HBS) data which
are now provided by 47 countries, although 30 of these countries cover only financial assets
and debts. An additional four countries have household survey data from which wealth levels
can be calculated. Together these countries cover 66% of the global population and 95% of
total global wealth. The results are supplemented by econometric techniques which generate
estimates of the level of wealth in 161 countries which lack direct information for one or more
years.
The second step involves constructing the pattern of wealth holdings within nations. Direct data
on the distribution of wealth are available for 31 countries. Inspection of data for these countries
suggests a relationship between wealth distribution and income distribution which can be
exploited in order to provide a rough estimate of wealth distribution for 135 other countries
which have data on income distribution but not on wealth ownership.
It is well recognized that the traditional sources of wealth distribution data are unlikely to provide
an accurate picture of wealth ownership in the top-tail of the distribution. To overcome this
deficiency, the third step makes use of the information in the “Rich Lists” published by Forbes
Magazine and elsewhere to adjust the wealth distribution pattern in the highest wealth ranges.
Implementing these procedures leaves 50 countries for which it is difficult to estimate either the
level of household wealth or the distribution of wealth, or both. Usually the countries concerned
are small (e.g. Andorra, Bermuda, Guatemala, Monaco) or semi-detached from the global
economy (e.g. Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea). For our estimates of the pattern of global
wealth, we assign these countries the average level and distribution of the region and income
class to which they belong. This is done in preference to omitting the countries altogether,
which would implicitly assume that their pattern of wealth holdings matches the world average.
However, checks indicate that excluding these nations from the global picture makes little
difference to the results.
Table 2-1 lists the 216 countries in the world along with some summary details. Note that China
and India are treated as separate regions due to the size of their populations.
The following sections describe the estimation procedures in more detail. Two other general
points should be mentioned at the outset. First, we use official exchange rates throughout to
convert currencies to our standard measure of value, which is US dollars at the time in question.
In international comparisons of consumption or income it is common to convert currencies using
“purchasing power parity” (PPP) exchange rates, which take account of local prices, especially
for non-traded services. However, in all countries a large share of personal wealth is owned by
households in the top few percentiles of the distribution, who tend to be internationally mobile
and to move their assets across borders with significant frequency. For such people, the
prevailing foreign currency rate is most relevant for international comparisons. So there is a
stronger case for using official exchange rates in studies of global wealth.
The second issue concerns the appropriate unit of analysis. A case can be made for basing the
analysis on households or families. However, personal assets and debts are typically owned (or
owed) by named individuals, and may be retained by those individuals if they leave the family.
Furthermore, even though some household assets, such as housing, provide communal
benefits, it is unusual for household members to have an equal say in the management of
assets, or to share equally in the proceeds if the asset is sold. Membership of households can
be quite fluid (for example, with respect to older children living away from home) and the pattern
of household structure varies markedly across countries. For all these reasons – plus the
practical consideration that the number of households is unknown in most countries – we prefer
to base our analysis on individuals rather than household or family units. More specifically, since
children have little formal or actual wealth ownership, we focus on wealth ownership by adults,
defined to be individuals aged 20 or above.
