Is there a term for the personal wealth that is not used to generate income? A rich person can own companies, shares, houses used for renting etc. that are worth billions of $US. That is the wealth that is generating income. I would call it income-generating wealth or income+jobs-generating wealth or growth-generating wealth

On the other hand, the rich person can own wealth like cash, bank accounts, houses, yachts, land used for playing golf etc. that is not used to generate income - this is a wealth that he is using for enjoying life. I would call this wealth leisure wealth.

A rich person can have an income-generating wealth worth billions of $US and in the same time it can have a leisure wealth that is close to zero. He/she can also have an income that is equal with the medium income. And then he/she can have only his own wage as a leisure wealth.

There are fundamental differences between the income-generating wealth and leisure wealth


The income-generating wealth is actually used to spin the wheel of the economy and it is also directly creating jobs.
In the same time, the leisure wealth is used by the rich person in order to actually live like a rich guy - or to live like an average citizen - depending of his/her choice. The leisure wealth is owned on personal name (not assets owned by a company of the owner) and it's for personal use - i.e. not used by any clients (like the houses for rent)


I think there should be distinct terms for the two in order to make a clear distinction between them.

Is there an already invented term for the wealth that I'm calling leisure wealth?
I do not believe that your suggested definitions will hold up. Since this is a forum for questions about economics, I do not see the point of proposing a new definition here. Who is going to see it?

What you call “income generating wealth” is captured by “wealth” in its standard usages. However, what you exclude (such as bank deposits) will be included in “wealth” or “claims on wealth.” From a portfolio perspective, it makes no sense to exclude bank deposits. Furthermore, “income” is well defined, and there are assets that generate no income for the holder, and yet are wealth (for example, a personal residence). Rephrasing to include future income does not help, since the sale of a primary residence is not considered income.

Everything else would be classified as “consumer goods.” If you want to only include things that “make you look like a rich person,” you would end up with the fuzzy category of “positional goods.”

Why not include consumer goods in wealth? One of the regularities of consumer goods is that they have almost no resale value. So there’s no good way to measure its value.

The lines are blurry. For a collector that buys and sells particular goods, those goods are actually assets that are expected to make a profit. However, no statistician could hope to measure the value of these exceptions.