Some people will be aghast by this information, others will be envious, others comforted. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about Bill Gates, his money, his consumption, but when I came across this information, it did make my eyebrows go up.

Here is an accumulation of Bill Gates's stock sales since April 2004. I haven't converted things into real dollars - would it really matter?

I haven't spent too much time thinking about this, however a few thoughts come to mind. First, Bill sells shares (primarily Microsoft) on a regular time table, basically every quarter (blind trust? tax purposes? legislation?). Why not cash in when the price of Microsoft hits a peak? Hmmm, interesting principal-agent problems there. However, there is a second, and (to me) important question: would such an accumulation of stock sales be possible by a private citizen in any other country?

STATA data file

Over the past two years, Bill has cashed in stocks of greater value than the (twice the annual) GDP of approximately 70 countries?

From the CIA World Factbook:

Rank Name GDP (millions)
163 Central African Republic 4,470
164 Burundi 4,432
165 Jersey 3,600
166 Guadeloupe 3,513
167 Guam 3,200
168 New Caledonia 3,158
169 The Gambia 3,094
170 Guyana 3,002
171 Cape Verde 2,990
172 Bhutan 2,900
173 Liberia 2,593
174 Guernsey 2,590
— Palestinian National Authority 2,568
175 Republic of the Congo 2,250
176 Virgin Islands 2,500
177 British Virgin Islands 2,498
178 Netherlands Antilles 2,450
179 Bermuda 2,330
180 Isle of Man 2,113
181 Suriname 2,077
182 Aruba 1,940
183 Andorra 1,900
184 West Bank 1,800
185 Belize 1,778
186 French Guiana 1,551
187 Cayman Islands 1,391
188 Maldives 1,250
189 Guinea-Bissau 1,101
190 Greenland 1,100
191 Faroe Islands 1,000
192 Samoa 1,000
193 San Marino 940
194 Northern Mariana Islands 900
195 Monaco 870
196 Saint Lucia 866
197 Liechtenstein 825
198 Solomon Islands 800
199 Gibraltar 769
200 Gaza Strip 768
201 Antigua and Barbuda 750
202 Seychelles 626
203 Djibouti 619
204 Vanuatu 580
205 American Samoa 500
206 Mayotte 466.8
207 Comoros 441
208 Grenada 440
209 Dominica 384
210 East Timor 370
211 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 342
212 Saint Kitts and Nevis 339
213 Federated States of Micronesia 277
214 Tonga 244
215 Turks and Caicos Islands 216
216 Sao Tome and Principe 214
217 Palau 174
218 Marshall Islands 115
219 Anguilla 112
220 Cook Islands 105
221 Kiribati 79
222 Falkland Islands 75
223 Nauru 60
224 Wallis and Futuna 60
225 Saint Pierre and Miquelon 48.3
226 Montserrat 29
227 Saint Helena 18
228 Tuvalu 12.2
229 Niue 7.6
230 Tokelau 1.5