The World Elite Database (WED) project is an international consortium of scholars working together to develop a new standardized data regime to study, and share data about elites across the world. It aims to solve the problem of comparability and heterogeneity in the study of national power structures, and to foster a cooperative community of scholars interested in studying elite populations systematically.
Comparable datasets are the prerequisite for establishing patterns of regularity, suggesting counterfactuals, and formulating ideas to be tested. This requires social scientists to agree upon common selection criteria, to collect publicly available information in similar fashion, to apply identical coding schemes, to share the same methods for data analysis and, to develop routines for ensuring high quality data that recognizes the institutional particularities of different national and regional contexts.
WED Methodological report
WED selection criteria
WED combines three interlinked selection criteria to define positions of economic power.
- Criteria one has two dimensions: criteria 1a includes the chairpersons and CEOs of the publicly-listed companies that compose the main stock index in a given country. Criteria 1b consists of the chairpersons and CEOs of the largest non-listed companies, especially privately held or state-controlled firms.
- Criteria two identifies the individuals who are listed on national rich lists.
- Criteria three covers the heads of organisations who exert regulatory power. It selects elected politicians, top bureaucrats, leaders of interest groups (business organisations, lobbies, unions), key intermediaries (e.g. management consultants, corporate bankers and lawyers) and institutional investors.
WED Selection Criteria
National Methodological Reports
Each member country applies the WED sampling criteria to its national context. You will find here the national methodological reports, which explain the choices made to build the population of economic elites in each country.
Variables
Within WED you will find the following information:
- Biographical information: gender, age, place of birth, nationality.
- Socio-economic origins: occupation of father, occupation of mother.
- Amount of wealth of individuals who are on the rich lists.
- Education: degrees, year of graduation, educational institutions, subjects, places of education.
- Positions of economic power (including multiple positions).
- Organizational information: sector of companies, place of headquarters, market capitalisation, turnover, number of employees.
WED Codebook
Data Management Policy
World Elite Database is dedicated to upholding the highest standards of data protection and ethical research practices. Committed to compliance with data protection laws, we prioritize the security of all data collected and processed as part of our research endeavors. We adhere to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles, ensuring that our data management practices are transparent, efficient, and conducive to maximizing the value and usability of our research outputs. The data are stored and managed on the research-driven data management system Heurist.
WED Data Managment Policy