IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/chb/bcchec/v22y2019i3p154-203.html

The wealth distribution in developed and developing economies: comparing the United States to Chile using survey data from 2007

Author

Listed:
  • Sofía Bauducco
  • Gonzalo Castex
  • Andrew Davis

Abstract

This study examines the distributions of income, assets, debt, and wealth within Chile, using data from the 2007 Household Financial Survey. We detail inequality at the aggregate level and also by a variety of subgroups, including age, gender, household type, employment type, and educational attainment. In comparison with data from the US Survey of Consumer Finances, we find that income and debt are more unequally distributed in Chile than in the US, but assets and wealth are more equally distributed in Chile than in the US. Our results suggest that, among common theories that seek to explain wealth inequality in the US, high payoffs to and the incentives imposed by entrepreneurship are the most plausible.

Suggested Citation

  • Sofía Bauducco & Gonzalo Castex & Andrew Davis, 2019. "The wealth distribution in developed and developing economies: comparing the United States to Chile using survey data from 2007," Journal Econom a Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 22(3), pages 154-203, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:chb:bcchec:v:22:y:2019:i:3:p:154-203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://si2.bcentral.cl/public/pdf/revista-economia/2019/dic/BCCh-rec-v22n3dic2019p154-203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claudia Sanhueza & Ricardo Mayer, 2011. "Top Incomes in Chile using 50 years of household surveys : 1957-2007," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 38(1 Year 20), pages 169-193, June.
    2. Carlos Madeira, 2019. "Computing population weights for the EFH survey," Journal Econom a Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 22(1), pages 004-026, April.
    3. Huggett, Mark, 1996. "Wealth distribution in life-cycle economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 469-494, December.
    4. Olympia Bover, 2010. "Wealth Inequality And Household Structure: U.S. Vs. Spain," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(2), pages 259-290, June.
    5. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Unequal We Stand: An Empirical Analysis of Economic Inequality in the United States: 1967-2006," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 15-51, January.
    6. Cordoba, Juan-Carlos, 2008. "U.S. inequality: Debt constraints or incomplete asset markets?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 350-364, March.
    7. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," NBER Working Papers 20625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. repec:idq:ictduk:13744 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Nezih Guner & Remzi Kaygusuz & Gustavo Ventura, 2014. "Income Taxation of U.S. Households: Facts and Parametric Estimates," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 559-581, October.
    10. Madeira, Carlos, 2026. "Identification of earnings dynamics using rotating samples over short periods: the case of Chile," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    11. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    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. Sofía Bauducco & Gonzalo Castex, 2013. "The Wealth Distribution in Developing Economies: Comparing the United States to Chile," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 702, Central Bank of Chile.
    2. Brant Abbott & Giovanni Gallipoli, 2022. "Permanent‐income inequality," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1023-1060, July.
    3. Alejandro Badel & Mark Huggett & Wenlan Luo, 2020. "Taxing Top Earners: a Human Capital Perspective," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(629), pages 1200-1225.
    4. Frank A. Cowell & Philippe Kerm, 2015. "Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 671-710, September.
    5. Nawid Siassi, 2019. "Inequality and the Marriage Gap," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 31, pages 160-181, January.
    6. Kaymak, Barıș & Leung, David & Poschke, Markus, 2020. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 13082, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Musab Kurnaz & Mehmet Soytas, 2019. "Early Childhood Investment and Income Taxation," 2019 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/50jd34uldo9jioklc7b0dpu4ej is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Nezih Guner & Martin Lopez-Daneri & Gustavo Ventura, 2023. "The Looming Fiscal Reckoning: Tax Distortions, Top Earners, and Revenues," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 50, pages 146-170, October.
    10. Marco Cozzi, 2018. "Optimal Capital Taxation with Incomplete Markets and Schumpeterian Growth," Department Discussion Papers 1803, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    11. Schmidt, Tobias & Alik-Lagrange, Arthur, 2016. "The Pattern of Home Ownership Across Age Cohorts and its Impact on the German Net Wealth Distribution," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145604, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Ferreiray, Pedro Cavalcanti & Santos, Marcelo Rodrigues, 2012. "The Effect of Social Security, Health, Demography and Technology on Retirement," Insper Working Papers wpe_274, Insper Working Paper, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa.
    13. Bagchi, Shantanu, 2015. "Labor supply and the optimality of Social Security," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 167-185.
    14. Dimitris Christelis & Michael Ehrmann & Dimitris Georgarakos, 2021. "Exploring Differences in Household Debt across the United States and Euro Area Countries," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(2-3), pages 477-501, March.
    15. Nezih Guner & Eugenio Renedo & Emre Enes Yavuz, 2026. "Taxes and Transfers with Nonlinear Wage Dynamics," Working Papers wp2026_2611, CEMFI.
    16. Xavier Gabaix & Jean‐Michel Lasry & Pierre‐Louis Lions & Benjamin Moll, 2016. "The Dynamics of Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2071-2111, November.
    17. Hong, Seungki, 2023. "MPCs in an emerging economy: Evidence from Peru," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    18. Job Boerma & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2021. "Inferring Inequality With Home Production," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(5), pages 2517-2556, September.
    19. Ana Ferreira, 2020. "Skill-Biased Technological Change and Inequality in the U.S," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 51, pages 91-107, December.
    20. Graciela Sanroman & Guillermo Santos, 2021. "The joint distribution of income and wealth in Uruguay," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 40(83), pages 609-642.
    21. Frank Cowell & Eleni Karagiannaki & Abigail Mcknight, 2018. "Accounting for Cross†Country Differences in Wealth Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 332-356, June.

    More about this item

    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:chb:bcchec:v:22:y:2019:i:3:p:154-203. 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: Sebastian Antinao (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bccgvcl.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.