World Elite Database
The World Elite Database (WED) is a cooperative data and analysis project led by researchers on elite populations across the world.
WED is an international consortium of scholars from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the USA. These teams work together to develop a new standardised data regime to study, and share data about elites. The UK team is based at the International Inequalities Institute at LSE.
Its aim is 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.
Highlights
- Press release: Who really runs Britain?
Over 500 of the UK’s most economically influential individuals have been identified in a new analysis, produced in collaboration with the World Elite Database.
- Johnathan Inkley, Research Assistant, LSE III
- Dr Paul Lagneau-Ymonet, Associate Professor of Sociology, Paris Dauphine University
- Mina Mahmoudzadeh, Research Assistant, LSE III
- Dr María Luisa Méndez, Director, Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies
- Marta Pagnini, Graduate Teaching Fellow, King’s College London
- Professor Mike Savage, Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III
- Savage, M., Gronwald, V., Inkley, J., Mahmoudzadeh, M. and Pagnini, M. (2026) ‘Quiet’ and ‘loud’ elites: the visibility of economic power in the UK, Socio-Economic Review
- Who really runs Britain?, LSE Press
- A new who's who of the global elites, Financial Times