IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0004054.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth From 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur B. Kennickell

    (Federal Reserve Board)

Abstract

This paper considers the distribution of wealth in the period from 1989 to 1998 as an indicator of the economic condition of households. It examines changes in the distribution of wealth over that period, mostly using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Some of the SCF data used here have previously been studied by Weicher (1996), Wolff (1996), and Kennickell and Woodburn (1992 and 1999). As background, the paper also uses some estimates published by Forbes magazine on the 400 wealthiest people in the United States. The first section of the paper briefly discusses the data. The next section uses the Forbes data to characterize changes at the very top of the wealth distribution. The third section presents a variety of estimates of wealth changes for the population below the AForbes 400" level using SCF data. The fourth section examines the sensitivity of the SCF estimates to a variety of assumptions about systematic mismeasurement in the data. The final section summarizes the findings of the paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur B. Kennickell, 2000. "An Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth From 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Macroeconomics 0004054, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0004054
    Note: Type of Document - Adobe Acrobat PDF; prepared on IBM PC; to print on PostScript; pages: 45; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/0004/0004054.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arthur B. Kennickell & Martha Starr-McCluer & Brian J. Surette, 2000. "Recent Changes in U.S. Family Finances: Results from the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 86(1), pages .1-29, January.
    2. Rochelle L. Antoniewicz, 1996. "A comparison of the household sector from the Flow of Funds Accounts and the Survey of Consumer Finances," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 96-26, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio, 2000. "Household Portfolios in Italy," CEPR Discussion Papers 2549, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Wolff, Edward N, 1996. "International Comparisons of Wealth Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 42(4), pages 433-451, December.
    5. John Weicher, 1996. "The Distribution of Wealth," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 650823, September.
    6. Edward N. Wolff, 1996. "International Comparisons Of Wealth Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 42(4), pages 433-451, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kennickell, Arthur & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2005. "Disentangling the importance of the precautionary saving motive," CFS Working Paper Series 2006/15, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2000. "An Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth from 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_307, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2003. "A rolling tide: changes in the distribution of wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2003. "A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the US, 1989-2001," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_393, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2003. "A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001," Others 0311002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Graziella Bertocchi, 2011. "The Vanishing Bequest Tax: The Comparative Evolution Of Bequest Taxation In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 107-131, March.
    6. Richard Hauser & Holger Stein, 2004. "Inequality of the Distribution of Personal Wealth in Germany 1973-1998," Microeconomics 0401005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Andrea Brandolini & Luigi Cannari & Giovanni D’Alessio & Ivan Faiella, 2006. "Household Wealth Distribution in Italy in the 1990s," Chapters, in: Edward N. Wolff (ed.), International Perspectives on Household Wealth, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Ingvild Almås & Magne Mogstad, 2009. "Older or Wealthier? The Impact of Age Adjustments on the Wealth Inequality Ranking of Countries," Discussion Papers 583, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    9. Francois-Charles Wolff & Seymour Spilerman & Claudine Attias-Donfut, 2005. "Do Parents Help More their Less Well-Off Children? Evidence from a Sample of Migrants to France," Microeconomics 0504001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Francisco Azpitarte, 2008. "The Household Wealth Distribution in Spain: The Role of Housing and Financial Wealth," Working Papers 83, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    11. Anthony Barnes Atkinson, 2006. "Concentration among the Rich," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (ed.), 2007. "Das Erreichte nicht verspielen. Jahresgutachten 2007/08 [The gains must not be squandered. Annual Report 2007/08]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 200708.
    13. Philip Vermeulen, 2018. "How Fat is the Top Tail of the Wealth Distribution?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 357-387, June.
    14. Edward N. Wolff, 1998. "Recent Trends in the Size Distribution of Household Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 131-150, Summer.
    15. Cagetti, Marco & De Nardi, Mariacristina, 2008. "Wealth Inequality: Data And Models," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(S2), pages 285-313, September.
    16. John Laitner, 2001. "Modeling the Macroeconomic Implications of Social Security Reform," Working Papers wp015, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    17. Francisco Azpitarte, 2010. "The household wealth distribution in Spain: The role of housing and financial wealth," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 194(3), pages 65-90, October.
    18. John Laitner, 2002. "Wealth Inequality and Altruistic Bequests," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 270-273, May.
    19. Philippe Michel & Pierre Pestieau, 1998. "Fiscal Policy in a Growth Model with Both Altruistic and Nonaltruistic Agents," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 682-697, January.
    20. John Laitner, 2001. "Wealth Accumulation in the U.S.: Do Inheritances and Bequests Play a Significant Role?," Working Papers wp019, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0004054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.