IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/revinw/v72y2026i2ne70062.html

The Wealth of Wealthholders

Author

Listed:
  • John Ameriks
  • Andrew Caplin
  • Minjoon Lee
  • Matthew D. Shapiro
  • Christopher Tonetti

Abstract

Wealth, though crucial for modeling economic behavior and understanding well‐being, is difficult to measure in surveys. This paper introduces a new, comprehensive account‐by‐account approach for eliciting asset holding. This approach is implemented in the Vanguard Research Initiative, a panel of wealthholders designed to yield high‐quality measurements for a large sample of older Americans with significant financial assets. Because survey responses are linked to administrative account balances, this paper can show that the approach yields precise, unbiased estimates. Having accurate and dense data on the wealth of wealthholders provides sharper inferences on wealth management behavior as well as on relationships between wealth and economic behavior than is possible in leading datasets.

Suggested Citation

  • John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & Minjoon Lee & Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher Tonetti, 2026. "The Wealth of Wealthholders," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 72(2), May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:72:y:2026:i:2:n:e70062
    DOI: 10.1111/roiw.70062
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.70062
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/roiw.70062?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Matthew Shapiro & Joseph Briggs & Chris Tonetti & Andrew Caplin & John Ameriks, 2016. "Late-in-Life Risks and the Under-Insurance Puzzle," 2016 Meeting Papers 241, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Mi Luo & Matthew Shapiro & Joseph Briggs & Chris Tonetti & Andrew Caplin & John Ameriks, 2016. "Inter-generational transfers and precautionary saving," 2016 Meeting Papers 1616, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Lee, Minjoon, 2023. "Portfolio allocation over the life cycle with multiple late-in-life saving motives," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Pamela Giustinelli & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2024. "SeaTE: Subjective Ex Ante Treatment Effect of Health on Retirement," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 278-317, April.
    6. Ameriks, John & Briggs, Joseph & Caplin, Andrew & Lee, Minjoon & Shapiro, Matthew D. & Tonetti, Christopher, 2018. "Shocks and Transitions from Career Jobs to Bridge Jobs and Retirement: A New Approach," Research Papers 3719, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    7. Madeira, Carlos & Margaretic, Paula, 2022. "The impact of financial literacy on the quality of self-reported financial information," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    8. John Ameriks & Joseph Briggs & Andrew Caplin & Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher Tonetti, 2016. "The Long-Term-Care Insurance Puzzle: Modeling and Measurement," NBER Working Papers 22726, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. John Ameriks & Joseph Briggs & Andrew Caplin & Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher Tonetti, 2020. "Long-Term-Care Utility and Late-in-Life Saving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2375-2451.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    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:revinw:v:72:y:2026:i:2:n:e70062. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/iariwea.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.