IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ude/wpaper/0717.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Joint Distribution of Income and Wealth in Uruguay

Author

Listed:
  • Graciela Sanroman

    () (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República)

  • Guillermo Santos

    () (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the joint distribution of income and wealth in Uruguay, and compares it to that of Chile, Spain and the U.S. using data from Surveys of Household Finances and Wealth. First, we analyze income and wealth separately and find that wealth is much more concentrated and notably more asymmetric than income. Afterwards, we provide non-parametric estimation of copulas for income and wealth. As expected, high income households are among the wealthiest, while low income households are mostly in the bottom of the wealth distribution, but dependence at the top is much stronger. Although this fact is observed in all the economies analyzed, by performing a test of equality between copulas we find that the pattern of dependence significantly varies across countries, except for the couple of Spain-Uruguay. Finally, we assess for the sources of income and wealth heterogeneity in Uruguay and conclude that education strongly influences income, wealth and the relationship between them. However, most of the wealth heterogeneity and some remarkable features of its relationship with income (in particular the peak at the top of the joint distribution) are not explained by the household characteristics commonly used to study income.

Suggested Citation

  • Graciela Sanroman & Guillermo Santos, 2017. "The Joint Distribution of Income and Wealth in Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0717, Department of Economics - dECON.
    • Handle: RePEc:ude:wpaper:0717
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cienciassociales.edu.uy/departamentodeeconomia/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/06/0717.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cerutti, Eugenio & Dagher, Jihad & Dell'Ariccia, Giovanni, 2017. "Housing finance and real-estate booms: A cross-country perspective," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-13.
    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. Cristian Badarinza & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai, 2016. "International Comparative Household Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 111-144, October.
    4. Geert Bekaert & Kenton Hoyem & Wei-Yin Hu & Enrichetta Ravina, 2015. "Who is Internationally Diversified? Evidence from 296 401(k)," NBER Working Papers 21236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. Agnello, Luca & Schuknecht, Ludger, 2011. "Booms and busts in housing markets: Determinants and implications," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 171-190, September.
    7. Rémillard, Bruno & Scaillet, Olivier, 2009. "Testing for equality between two copulas," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 377-386, March.
    8. Frank Cowell & Eleni Karagiannaki & Abigail McKnight, 2012. "Accounting for Cross-Country Differences in Wealth Inequality," LWS Working papers 13, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    9. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    10. 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.
    11. Allen Head & Huw Lloyd-Ellis, 2012. "Housing Liquidity, Mobility, and the Labour Market," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1559-1589.
    12. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2009. "Ponds and streams: wealth and income in the U.S., 1989 to 2007," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-13, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. 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.
    14. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 706-732, August.
    15. Cooper, Ian & Sercu, Piet & Vanpée, Rosanne, 2013. "The Equity Home Bias Puzzle: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 7(4), pages 289-416, December.
    16. Jorge Ponce, 2012. "Precio de fundamentos para las viviendas en Uruguay," Documentos de trabajo 2012017, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    17. L. Arrondel & M. Roger & F. Savignac, 2014. "Wealth and Income in the Euro Area: Heterogeneity in Households’ Behaviours?," Working papers 497, Banque de France.
    18. Markus Jäntti & Eva M. Sierminska & Philippe Van Kerm, 2015. "Modeling the Joint Distribution of Income and Wealth," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Thesia I. Garner & Kathleen S. Short (ed.), Measurement of Poverty, Deprivation, and Economic Mobility, volume 23, pages 301-327, Emerald Publishing Ltd.
    19. Cerutti, Eugenio & Dagher, Jihad & Dell'Ariccia, Giovanni, 2017. "Housing finance and real-estate booms: A cross-country perspective," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-13.
    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. Mauricio De Rosa, 2018. "Wealth distribution in Uruguay: capitalizing incomes in the dark," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 18-07, Instituto de Economia - IECON.

    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. Mathias Moser & Stefan Humer & Matthias Schnetzer, 2016. "Bequests and the accumulation of wealth in the Eurozone," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 149, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    2. Sarah Kuypers & Ive Marx, 2019. "The Truly Vulnerable: Integrating Wealth into the Measurement of Poverty and Social Policy Effectiveness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 131-147, February.
    3. Stefan Humer & Mathias Moser & Matthias Schnetzer, 2017. "Inheritances and the Accumulation of Wealth in the Eurozone," ICAE Working Papers 73, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    4. 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 Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 22(3), pages 154-203, December.
    5. Sang Yoon (Tim) Lee, 2019. "Entrepreneurs, managers and inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 42-67, April.
    6. Essi Eerola & Niku Maattanen, 2018. "Borrowing constraints and housing market liquidity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 27, pages 184-204, January.
    7. Hans A. Holter & Dirk Krueger & Serhiy Stepanchuk, 2019. "How do tax progressivity and household heterogeneity affect Laffer curves?," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(4), pages 1317-1356, November.
    8. Núria Rodríguez‐Planas, 2018. "Mortgage finance and culture," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 786-821, September.
    9. Musab Kurnaz & Mehmet Soytas, 2019. "Early Childhood Investment and Income Taxation," 2019 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2017. "Redistribution and insurance with simple tax instruments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 58-78.
    11. 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.
    12. Lyon, Spencer G. & Waugh, Michael E., 2018. "Redistributing the gains from trade through progressive taxation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 185-202.
    13. Yongsheng Jiang & Dong Zhao & Andrew Sanderford & Jing Du, 2018. "Effects of Bank Lending on Urban Housing Prices for Sustainable Development: A Panel Analysis of Chinese Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 10(3), pages 1-16, February.
    14. Vladimir Hlasny, 2020. "Parametric Representation of the Top of Income Distributions: Options, Historical Evidence and Model Selection," Working Papers 547, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Bettina Brueggemann, 2016. "Higher Taxes at the Top: The Role of Entrepreneurs," 2016 Meeting Papers 332, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Funke, Michael & Kirkby, Robert & Mihaylovski, Petar, 2018. "House prices and macroprudential policy in an estimated DSGE model of New Zealand," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 152-171.
    17. Michał Brzeziński & Katarzyna Sałach, 2020. "Why wealth inequality differs between post-socialist countries?," Working Papers 2020-14, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    18. Gomes, Francisco J & Haliassos, Michael & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2020. "Household Finance," CEPR Discussion Papers 14502, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Mathä, Thomas Y. & Porpiglia, Alessandro & Sierminska, Eva, 2011. "The immigrant/native wealth gap in Germany, Italy and Luxembourg," Working Paper Series 1302, European Central Bank.
    20. Clara Toledano, 2017. "House Price Cycles, Wealth Inequality and Portfolio Reshuffling," Working Papers halshs-02797549, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income; wealth; inequality; copula; non-parametric estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C4 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics
    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • 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:ude:wpaper:0717. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Andrea Doneschi) or (Romina Quagliotti). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/derauuy.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.