We discuss a statistical model of evolution of wealth distribution, growing inequality and economic stratification in macro-economic scale. Evolution is driven by multiplicative stochastic fluctuations governed by the law of proportionate growth as well as by direct interactions between individuals and interactions between the private and public sectors. We concentrate on the effect of accumulated advantage and study the role of taxation and redistribution in the process of reducing wealth inequality. We show in particular that capital tax may significantly reduce wealth inequality and lead to a stabilisation of the system. The model predicts a decay of the population into economic classes of quantised wealth levels. The effect of economic stratification manifests in a characteristic multimodal form of the histogram of wealth distribution. We observe such a multimodal pattern in empirical data on wealth distribution for urban areas of China.
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