In june 2006 the then two richest men on the planet performed a remarkable ceremony. Warren Buffett, an eminent investor, agreed to hand over the bulk of his fortune to the foundation run by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. It was a gesture that recalled the philanthropic heyday of Andrew Carnegie, the late-19th-century steel baron who became famous for funding public libraries.rnHow typical is such generosity of modern billionaires? Frustratingly, it is very hard to tell. The endowments of American foundations more than doubled between 1996 and 2006, but the increase only just kept pace with the rise in the total wealth of the Forbes 400 over that period. There is no evidence that the rich have been getting more, or less, generous.
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