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Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the United States

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Abstract

We assess the empirical relevance of different macroeconomic modeling approaches to wealth concentration, using the joint distribution of earnings, capital income and net worth in combination with an OLG model of household heterogeneity. We find large earnings disparities to be the primary source of US wealth concentration. This reflects the fact that labor income, from salaries but also from entrepreneurship, is a major income source for top income and wealth groups in the data. Bequests and differences in rates of return on capital together explain about half the holdings of the wealthiest of households, but much less for the rest.

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  • Barış Kaymak & David Leung & Markus Poschke, 2022. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the United States," Working Papers 22-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwq:94941
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202228
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wealth Inequality; Income and Earnings Distribution; Factor Share of Income; Bequests; Rate of Return Heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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