IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jeurec/v14y2016i4p871-906.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Price-Level Changes And The Redistribution Of Nominal Wealth Across The Euro Area

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus Adam
  • Junyi Zhu

Abstract

We document the presence of sizable nominal wealth redistribution effects from unexpected price level movements in the Euro Area (EA), using sectoral accounts and newly available data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The EA as a whole is a net loser of unexpected price level decreases, with Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain losing most in per capita terms, and Belgium and Malta being net winners. Governments are net losers of unexpected deflation, while the household (HH) sector is a net winner in the EA as a whole. HHs in Belgium, Ireland, Malta and Germany experience the biggest per capita gains, while HHs in Finland and Spain turn out to be net losers. Considerable heterogeneity exists also within the HH sector: relatively young middle class HHs are net losers of unanticipated deflation, while older and richer HHs are winners. As a result, wealth inequality in the EA increases with unexpected deflation, although in some countries (Austria, Germany and Malta) inequality decreases due to the presence of relatively few young borrowing HHs. We document that HHs inflation exposure varies systematically across countries, with HHs in EA countries that experienced high inflation holding systematically lower nominal exposures.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus Adam & Junyi Zhu, 2016. "Price-Level Changes And The Redistribution Of Nominal Wealth Across The Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 871-906, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jeurec:v:14:y:2016:i:4:p:871-906
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jeea.2016.14.issue-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albanesi, Stefania, 2007. "Inflation and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1088-1114, May.
    2. Charles Engel & Kenneth D. West, 2005. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(3), pages 485-517, June.
    3. Bach, G L & Stephenson, James B, 1974. "Inflation and the Redistribution of Wealth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(1), pages 1-13, February.
    4. Matthias Doepke & Martin Schneider, 2006. "Inflation and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(6), pages 1069-1097, December.
    5. Kavonius, Ilja Kristian & Honkkila, Juha, 2013. "Micro and macro analysis on household income, wealth and saving in the euro area," Working Paper Series 1619, European Central Bank.
    6. Césaire A. Meh & Yaz Terajima, 2011. "Inflation, nominal portfolios, and wealth redistribution in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1369-1402, November.
    7. Nils M. Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2016. "Doves for the Rich, Hawks for the Poor? Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy," International Finance Discussion Papers 1167, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Mr. John Silvia & Mr. Lorenz Kueng & Mr. Olivier Coibion & Mr. Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Innocent Bystanders? Monetary Policy and Inequality in the U.S," IMF Working Papers 2012/199, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Erosa, Andres & Ventura, Gustavo, 2002. "On inflation as a regressive consumption tax," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 761-795, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Adam, Klaus & Tzamourani, Panagiota, 2016. "Distributional consequences of asset price inflation in the Euro Area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 172-192.
    2. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    3. Césaire A. Meh & Yaz Terajima, 2011. "Inflation, nominal portfolios, and wealth redistribution in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 1369-1402, November.
    4. Meh, Césaire A. & Ríos-Rull, José-Víctor & Terajima, Yaz, 2010. "Aggregate and welfare effects of redistribution of wealth under inflation and price-level targeting," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(6), pages 637-652, September.
    5. Chen, Siyan & Desiderio, Saul, 2018. "Computational evidence on the distributive properties of monetary policy," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-32.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/16fo245k6a8q1pss5r3giac4m2 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Andrea Colciago & Anna Samarina & Jakob de Haan, 2019. "Central Bank Policies And Income And Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 1199-1231, September.
    8. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kueng, Lorenz & Silvia, John, 2017. "Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 70-89.
    9. Christophe Blot & Jérôme Creel & Paul Hubert & Fabien Labondance & Xavier Ragot, 2015. "The redistributive effects of QE," Working Papers hal-03459824, HAL.
    10. Mehdi El Herradi & Jakob Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2023. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 14 OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(1), pages 170-194, March.
    11. Villarreal, Francisco G., 2014. "Financial Services and Household Inequality in Mexico," MPRA Paper 57075, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Seghezza, Elena & Morelli, Pierluigi, 2014. "Conflict inflation and delayed stabilization," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 171-184.
    13. Mehdi el Herradi & Jakob de Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2020. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 12 OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 8203, CESifo.
    14. Can Sever & Emekcan Yucel, 2021. "Electoral Cycles in Inequality Abstract:," Working Papers 2021/01, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    15. Nils M. Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2012. "Monetary policy with heterogeneous agents," Working Papers 12-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    16. Matthias Doepke, "undated". "Inflation as a Redistribution Shock: Effects on Aggregates and Welfare," UCLA Economics Online Papers 412, UCLA Department of Economics.
    17. Garriga, Carlos & Kydland, Finn E. & Šustek, Roman, 2016. "Nominal rigidities in debt and product markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86223, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    19. Afonso, Oscar, 2023. "Inflation, technological-knowledge bias, and wages," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 91-103.
    20. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Lorenz Kueng & John Silvia, 2012. "Innocent Bystanders? Monetary Policy and Inequality in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 18170, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Ehrmann, Michael & Ziegelmeyer, Michael, 2014. "Household Risk Management and Actual Mortgage Choice in the Euro Area," MEA discussion paper series 201406, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Price Level Changes and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth Across the Euro Area (JEEA 2016) in ReplicationWiki

    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:bla:jeurec:v:14:y:2016:i:4:p:871-906. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaaaea.html .

    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.