Meet The Team
Acknowledgements, from GC Wealth Project Director Salvatore Morelli
The project underwent approximately five years of development before its launch, and many individuals contributed to varying degrees, during multiple stages, and to different sections of the project. First, the project would not exist without the continuous, reliable, and professional support of the Stone Center, including its director Janet Gornick, and the staff, Carolyn Fisher, Mei-Ling Israel, Jennifer Kitses, Veronica Ordaz, and Saraya McPherson. I also acknowledge the support from the Law Department of the University of Roma Tre, including the director Antonio Carratta, as well as the admin staff Giuseppina Santilli and Federico Melograno.
Regarding the Wealth Topography database, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of Gonçalo Costa in conceptualizing the database and initiating the first systematic data gathering effort. Giacomo Rella oversaw the development of the Wealth Topography database and played a pivotal role. He carried out various essential tasks, including conceptualization, designing the current data architecture, the national accounting mapping, and the automation of data gathering. Furthermore, he structured detailed metadata complementing the database. I would also like to thank Ana Rojas Silvero for providing valuable assistance in gathering and classifying raw sources on household balance sheets. My thanks also go to Marco Ranaldi, Yaoqi Lin, and Pranabes Probeshika Dutta for their support with initial data gathering.
The collaborative work of Frincasco Di Biase and Ercio Muñoz, working with me, proved instrumental in gathering the available data series for the Wealth Inequality Trends section. Additionally, Franziska Disslbacher took an oversight role of the Wealth Inequality Trends database and made possible the automation of its creation process. Furthermore, together with Ignacio Flores, she enabled the estimation of wealth inequality trends series using cross-national survey databases. The development of methodological tables to supplement the inequality trends series was carried out by me, with meticulous assistance from Frincasco Di Biase throughout the process, which was instrumental in deriving the final tables in their current form. Adam Rego Johnson played a pivotal role in creating compilation standards and manuals, as well as providing invaluable work in editing, proofreading, and classifying the tables. He also played a fundamental role in systematizing and classifying references, including within the Digital Library of Research on Wealth Inequality and the Data Sources Library. The initial work conducted by Carolyn Fisher, Ian Haberman, Twisha Asher, and subsequent contributions by Franziska Disslbacher, were instrumental in determining the conceptual structure of the methodological tables, as well as providing content for specific sources. Thanks also to Philipp Erfurth for his valuable feedback during the early stages of the process.
Regarding the Estate, Inheritance, and Gift (EIG) Taxes section, I would like to acknowledge the dedicated work of Twisha Asher, who collected and classified tax policy parameters and researched corporate reports, official statistics, tax legislation documents, and research papers. She also played a crucial role in supporting the conceptualization and documentation of the current structure of the EIG database. I would also like to acknowledge important contributions by Manuel Schechtl, who assumed the oversight role on the development of the EIG database. Jointly with Twisha Asher and Ignacio Flores, Manuel Schechtl also helped clarify the code to assemble the database and streamline the data collection process. Twisha Asher, alongside with Manuel Schechtl, also supervised a number of excellent research assistants who worked on different aspects of the project: Mei Li, Nolan Lyons, Yue Pan, Alex Parton, Sarah Russo, Jack Shea, and Tsu Zhu.
Ignacio Flores played a crucial role in overseeing the overall architecture of the data warehouse. His work allowed for the integration of various components, resulting in a cohesive and well-structured data warehouse.
Special thanks to Mark Sheppard who helped to create the GC Wealth Project logo, the thumbnails, and visual banners for the website in the months leading up to the launch of the website. The project also relied on the expertise of external consultants. Toni Johnson provided invaluable support as director of communication in the early phase of the project. We extend thanks to Marcelo Agudo for his editing work, and to Robert Breen for his assistance with Tableau. We would like to acknowledge Rodica Ceslov and Connie Colvin for their support as project managers during earlier, separate phases of the project. Finally, we are grateful to the Lovelytics team for their assistance in the initial design of the Tableau dashboard and for their contribution to the website development.