The Nordic economies are not as perfect

The Nordic countries and their lifestyle are fashionable. Its wide coverage in social benefits, high levels of equality between men and women, their education system, laboras flexibility of companies and their high levels of happiness have put them in the center of the map. However, some of these states hide one of the highest rates of European inequality.

Specifically, the Gini index (used to measure income inequality) suggests that countries with greater inequality of wealth in Europe are Denmark (0.89) , Sweden (0.81) , Austria (0.78) and Germany (0.78). Our country, with 0,67, is one of the lowest in Europe with Belgium (0.63) and Italy (0.67).

This end is to be confirmed in the report "Inequality in Spain" Juan Institute of Mariana, where it shows that by measuring the ratio between the assets of the richest 20% of society and the remaining 80% we obtain the highest score is concentrated in central European countries like Germany (12.8), Austria (13.4) and the Netherlands (14.8). Also in some Nordic and Norway (9.1) and Finland (7.4) . Spain (6 is also situated in this case as one of the least unequal countries together with Slovakia (3.8) and Greece (5.2).

However, if we consider other indicators that do not include income in kind or imputed rents as a ratio of income between the poorest 20% richest society and 20% we obtain that in the case of Spain the richest 20% entered in 2013 an income 6.3 times higher than the poorest 20%. Instead, Netherlands (3.6), Finland (3.6) and Sweden (3.7) had the lowest ratios among European countries.

The authors of the study, Ignacio Moncada and Juan Ramón Rallo , state that "most inegalitarian countries in Europe in terms of distribution of wealth are countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark." The report cited the example of Sweden and the fact that throughout his life the citizens bring the state about the same as receiving. They argue that since the Swedish state provides income and services to its habirantes, these have less income during their working lives to save.

These theories joins another analysis published by the newspaper "The Economist" . This recalls the Credit Suisse report published last October in which stresses that 1% of the richest Swedish families owns 24% of global wealth. By contrast, Spain only controls 16.5% of this amount.