IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jku/econwp/2014_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Correcting wealth survey data for the missing rich: The case of Austria

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Eckerstorfer
  • Johannes Halak

    (Government of the Federal State of Upper Austria)

  • Jakob Kapeller

    (Department of Philosophy and Theory of Science, University of Linz, Linz, Austria)

  • Bernhard Schütz

    (Department of Economics, University of Linz, Linz, Austria)

  • Florian Springholz

    (Department of Philosophy and Theory of Science, University of Linz, Linz, Austria)

  • Rafael Wildauer

    (Department of Economics, Kingston University London)

Abstract

It is a well-known criticism that due to its exponential distribution, survey data on wealth is hardly reliable when it comes to analyzing the richest parts of society. This paper addresses this criticism using Austrian data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). In doing so we apply the assumption of a Pareto distribution to obtain estimates for the number of households possessing a net wealth greater than four million Euros as well as their aggregate wealth holdings. Thereby, we identify suitable parameter combinations by using a series of maximum-likelihood estimates and appropriate goodness-of-fit tests to avoid arbitrariness with respect to the fitting of the Pareto-Distribution. Our results suggest that the alleged non-observation bias is considerable, accounting for about one quarter of total net wealth. The method developed in this paper can easily be applied to other countries where survey data on wealth are available.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Eckerstorfer & Johannes Halak & Jakob Kapeller & Bernhard Schütz & Florian Springholz & Rafael Wildauer, 2014. "Correcting wealth survey data for the missing rich: The case of Austria," Economics working papers 2014-01, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    • Handle: RePEc:jku:econwp:2014_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2014/wp1401.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Camillo Dagum, 2006. "Wealth distribution models: analisys and applications," Statistica, Department of Statistics, University of Bologna, vol. 66(3), pages 235-268.
    2. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective," Post-Print halshs-00847231, HAL.
    3. Facundo Alvaredo & Emmanuel Saez, 2009. "Income and Wealth Concentration in Spain from a Historical and Fiscal Perspective," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(5), pages 1140-1167, September.
    4. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    5. Peter Hoeller & Isabelle Joumard & Mauro Pisu & Debra Bloch, 2012. "Less Income Inequality and More Growth – Are They Compatible? Part 1. Mapping Income Inequality Across the OECD," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 924, OECD Publishing.
    6. Robert Guttmann & Dominique Plihon, 2010. "Consumer debt and financial fragility," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 269-283.
    7. Stanislav Kolenikov, 2010. "Resampling variance estimation for complex survey data," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(2), pages 165-199, June.
    8. Peter Hoeller & Isabelle Joumard & Mauro Pisu & Debbie Bloch, 2014. "Mapping Income Inequality Across The Oecd," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Peter Hoeller & Isabelle Joumard & Isabell Koske (ed.), Income Inequality in OECD Countries What are the Drivers and Policy Options?, chapter 2, pages 13-42, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Stefan Bach & Martin Beznoska & Viktor Steiner, 2011. "A Wealth Tax on the Rich to Bring down Public Debt?: Revenue and Distributional Effects of a Capital Levy," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 397, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    10. Daniel R. Feenberg & James M. Poterba, 1993. "Income Inequality and the Incomes of Very High-Income Taxpayers: Evidence from Tax Returns," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 7, pages 145-177, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Cowell, Frank, 2011. "Inequality among the wealthy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43897, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Kopczuk, Wojciech & Saez, Emmanuel, 2004. "Top Wealth Shares in the United States, 1916-2000: Evidence From Estate Tax Returns," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 445-487, June.
    13. Wilkinson, Richard G. & Pickett, Kate E., 2007. "The problems of relative deprivation: Why some societies do better than others," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1965-1978, November.
    14. Mikail Rubinov & Olaf Sporns & Jean-Philippe Thivierge & Michael Breakspear, 2011. "Neurobiologically Realistic Determinants of Self-Organized Criticality in Networks of Spiking Neurons," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-14, June.
    15. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 3-20, Summer.
    16. Stefan Bach & Martin Beznoska & Viktor Steiner, 2014. "A Wealth Tax on the Rich to Bring Down Public Debt? Revenue and Distributional Effects of a Capital Levy in Germany," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 35, pages 67-89, March.
    17. repec:cep:sticas:/150 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Franz R. Hahn & Christa Magerl, 2006. "Vermögen in Österreich," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 79(1), pages 53-67, January.
    19. Thomas Piketty, 2003. "Income Inequality in France, 1901-1998," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1004-1042, October.
    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. Paul Eckerstorfer & Johannes Halak & Jakob Kapeller & Bernhard Schütz & Florian Springholz & Rafael Wildauer, 2016. "Correcting for the Missing Rich: An Application to Wealth Survey Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 605-627, December.
    2. Frank A. Cowell & Philippe Kerm, 2015. "Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 671-710, September.
    3. Paul Eckerstorfer & Johannes Halak & Jakob Kapeller & Bernhard Schütz & Florian Springholz & Rafael Wildauer, 2014. "Die Vermögensverteilung in Österreich und das Aufkommenspotenzial einer Vermögenssteuer," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 40(1), pages 63-81.
    4. Gabriel Burdín & Fernando Esponda & Andrea Vigorito, 2014. "Inequality and top incomes in Uruguay: a comparison between household surveys and income tax micro-data," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 1321, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    5. Gabriel Burdín & Mauricio de Rosa & Andrea Vigorito & Joan Vilá, 2019. "Was falling inequality in all Latin American countries a data-driven illusion? Income distribution and mobility patterns in Uruguay 2009-2016," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 19-30, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    6. Gabriel Burdin & Fernando Esponda & Andrea Vigorito, 2004. "Inequality and Top Income in Uruguay: A Comparison between Household Surveys and Income Tax Micro-data," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-02654095, HAL.
    7. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    8. Atanu Ghoshray & Issam Malki & Javier Ordóñez, 2022. "On the long-run dynamics of income and wealth inequality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 375-408, February.
    9. Facundo Alvaredo & Guillermo Cruces & Leonardo Gasparini, 2018. "A short episodic history of income distribution in Argentina," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 27(1), pages 1-45, December.
    10. Anthony B. Atkinson & Alessandra Casarico & Sarah Voitchovsky, 2018. "Top incomes and the gender divide," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(2), pages 225-256, June.
    11. Ramón E. López & Eugenio Figueroa B. & Pablo Gutiérrez C., 2016. "Fundamental accrued capital gains and the measurement of top incomes: an application to Chile," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(4), pages 379-394, December.
    12. Oliver Denk, 2015. "Who are the top 1% earners in Europe?," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1274, OECD Publishing.
    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. 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.
    15. Jordá, Vanesa & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2019. "Global inequality: How large is the effect of top incomes?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Boschini, Anne & Gunnarsson, Kristin & Roine, Jesper, 2020. "Women in top incomes – Evidence from Sweden 1971–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    17. Thomas Hauner, 2020. "Aggregate wealth and its distribution as determinants of financial crises," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(3), pages 319-338, September.
    18. Lieberknecht, Philipp & Vermeulen, Philip, 2018. "Inequality and relative saving rates at the top," Working Paper Series 2204, European Central Bank.
    19. Ravaska Terhi, 2018. "Top incomes and income dynamics from a gender perspective : Evidence from Finland 1995-2012," Working Papers 1822, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    20. Stefan Bach, 2014. ""Reichensteuer"-Diskussion: Hintergrund und Perspektiven," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 16, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wealth distribution; non-observation bias; Pareto distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C46 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Specific Distributions
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:jku:econwp:2014_01. 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: René Böheim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vlinzat.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.