Credit Suisse has released its 2017 Global Wealth Report, which reveals that Australian households are the wealthiest in the world when measured by median wealth:
Household wealth in Australia grew at a fast pace between 2000 and 2012 in US dollar terms, except for a short interruption in 2008. The average annual growth rate of wealth per adult was 12%, with about half due to exchange-rate appreciation against the US dollar. The exchange-rate effect went into reverse for three years after 2012 and, like other resource-rich countries, Australia was badly hit by sagging commodity prices. Despite that slowdown, Australia’s wealth per adult in 2018 is USD 411,060, the second-highest in the world after Switzerland. In terms of median wealth, it has edged above Switzerland into first place.
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
