America remains the best country in the world to get rich. Some see this as cause for celebration, while others view it as evidence of a broken capitalist system. As an economist, I am less interested in debating whether billionaires (or trillionaires) should exist than in asking what the alternative is. One of those alternatives is Europe, where the system ensures that the richest are not too rich — and that their wealth is inherited rather than earned.

In Florence, the richest families have occupied that position for six centuries, with hardly any turnover. This is an extreme case, but it is not unusual in Europe for the wealthiest families to be the same for generations. In the U.S., by contrast, the richest tend to be self-made. The difference is about policy as much as culture.

In 2007, two economists looked at the richest families in the U.S. and noted that in the 1960s, women made up half of the top 0.01%, but by the turn of the century, they made up less than a third. The explanation, the authors speculate, is that there are more self-made men in the top 0.01%. When........

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