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The Wealth Distribution With Durable Goods

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Author Info
Antonia Díaz
Maria Jose Luengo-Prado ()

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Abstract

This paper studies the effect that illiquid assets and collateral credit frictions have on the level of wealth inequality in a standard model of ex-ante heterogenous agents with idiosyncratic uncertainty. We calibrate our model so that its steady state statistics match selected aggregate statistics of the U.S. economy and data on the earnings distribution. We find that adding illiquid assets and collateral credit frictions decreases wealth inequality decreases slightly relative to an economy with liquid assets and no credit frictions. The effect is small because these frictions mostly affect poor households that account for a small fraction of aggregate wealth. Nevertheless, our richer model allows us to study other dimensions of wealth inequality. In particular, our model replicates the fact that financial assets are more concentrated than total wealth, while residential assets are less concentrated. Furthermore, we document that, in the U.S., the earnings and housing distributions are remarkably similar. Our model can account for this fact so long as the earnings process is fairly persistent

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Paper provided by Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de Economía in its series Economics Working Papers with number we067027.

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Date of creation: Dec 2006
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Handle: RePEc:cte:werepe:we067027

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  1. Sang-Wook Stanley Cho, 2007. "Accounting for Lifecycle Wealth Accumulation: The Role of Housing Institution," Discussion Papers 2007-27, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  2. Antonia Diaz & Maria Jose Luengo Prado, 2008. "On the User Cost and Homeownership," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 584-613, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Matteo Iacoviello & Marina Pavan, 2007. "An Equilibrium Model of Lumpy Housing Investment," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 97(2), pages 15-44, March-Apr. [Downloadable!]
  4. Pedro Silos, 2005. "Housing tenure and wealth distribution in life-cycle economies," Working Paper 2005-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2007. " Winners and Losers in Housing Markets," CDMA Conference Paper Series 0705, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis. [Downloadable!]
  6. Sang-Wook Stanley Cho, 2007. "Household Wealth Accumulation and Portfolio Choices in Korea," Discussion Papers 2007-26, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  7. Pedro Silos, 2005. "Housing, portfolio choice, and the macroeconomy," Working Paper 2005-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Matteo Iacoviello & Stefano Neri, 2007. "Housing Market Spillovers: Evidence from an Estimated DSGE Model," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 659, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 23 Oct 2009. [Downloadable!]
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