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FN-003 · Capital Concentration Monitor · v1.0

Capital Capture Index

Where the surplus goes as labour's share falls. Six countries, 1980–2024.

CCI = Capital's share of GDP = 100 − Labour share
capital-dominant moderate labour retains wid.world ↗
Capital share rising = the curse advancing. But the headline is confounded by resource rents — Norway and Saudi Arabia read high because petroleum income books as capital, not because of AI. The compute-concentration panel is the AI-native signal; the factor-share trend is the long backdrop it will eventually bend. Latest year is WID's nowcast, marked provisional.

Current Position
Factor & wealth shares vs. capital capture
Factor & wealth shares (%)
Capital Capture Index — Selected Country
Cross-country snapshot —
Capital Capture Index by Country
Source data — all countries 1980–2024
Country
Year
Country Year Labour Share % Top 1% Wealth % Top 10% Wealth % Top 1% Income % CCI
Sources and methodology
Labour & capital share — the Capital Capture Index

From the World Inequality Database (WID.world), labour share of GDP at factor cost (series ylsgdp). Capital share — the CCI — is its complement: CCI = 100 − labour share. A rising CCI means a larger slice of national income accrues to capital rather than wages.

WID.world  ·  WID codes dictionary

Wealth & income concentration

Top 1% / top 10% wealth share (shweal992j) and top 1% pre-tax income share (sptinc992j), equal-split adults, from WID.world. These measure how concentrated the captured surplus becomes once it leaves the wage bill.

Compute concentration (global) — the AI-native signal

Herfindahl–Hirschman Index of frontier-model training compute by organisation, per year, computed from Epoch AI's frontier-models dataset (training compute in FLOP, attributed to the lead organisation). 0–10000; higher = fewer labs control the means of producing intelligence. This is a global series — frontier compute does not distribute by country.

Epoch AI — Data on AI Models

Notes & caveats

Resource rents (Norway, Saudi Arabia): both read with very high capital share because petroleum income books as a return to capital, not labour. Norway's CCI ≈ 62 and Saudi Arabia's ≈ 84 reflect resource dependency, not AI-driven capture — the same distortion that inflates Norway's corporate-tax share in the IC Index. Read their trend, not their level.

Provisional latest year (*): WID nowcasts the most recent year or two; rows marked * are extrapolated and will be revised as final national-accounts data arrives.

Reading the index: the factor-share trend is a slow, decades-long backdrop driven by globalisation, automation, and policy long before AI. It is the curve the intelligence thesis predicts will bend; the compute-concentration panel is where that bend, if it comes, should show first.