The Wealth of The Dutch Political Elite (1870-1922)

Abstract

Using newly-collected archival data, this study investigates the wealth and investment portfolio’s of Dutch politicians from 1870 to 1922. In a period when the political and economic situation underwent many changes, this study finds that the political arena remains rather static: politicians are wealthy in comparison to the average citizen. Secondly, Upper House members are by far the wealthiest politicians followed by executives. Lower house politicians are the poorest on average, consistent with the lower house being accessible by the entire male population of the country. Finally, there is no strong trend towards a more equal representation of the Dutch population in the nineteenth century, but towards the 1920’s, a substantial number of poorer politicians was elected and politicians of all kinds were significantly less wealthy than their predecessors. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study detailing the trajectory of personal wealth of politicians in the Netherlands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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