IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0004054.html

An Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth From 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur B. Kennickell

    (Federal Reserve Board)

Abstract

This paper considers the distribution of wealth in the period from 1989 to 1998 as an indicator of the economic condition of households. It examines changes in the distribution of wealth over that period, mostly using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Some of the SCF data used here have previously been studied by Weicher (1996), Wolff (1996), and Kennickell and Woodburn (1992 and 1999). As background, the paper also uses some estimates published by Forbes magazine on the 400 wealthiest people in the United States. The first section of the paper briefly discusses the data. The next section uses the Forbes data to characterize changes at the very top of the wealth distribution. The third section presents a variety of estimates of wealth changes for the population below the AForbes 400" level using SCF data. The fourth section examines the sensitivity of the SCF estimates to a variety of assumptions about systematic mismeasurement in the data. The final section summarizes the findings of the paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur B. Kennickell, 2000. "An Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth From 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Macroeconomics 0004054, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0004054
    Note: Type of Document - Adobe Acrobat PDF; prepared on IBM PC; to print on PostScript; pages: 45; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/0004/0004054.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arthur B. Kennickell & Martha Starr-McCluer & Brian J. Surette, 2000. "Recent Changes in U.S. Family Finances: Results from the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 86(1), pages .1-29, January.
    2. Rochelle L. Antoniewicz, 1996. "A comparison of the household sector from the Flow of Funds Accounts and the Survey of Consumer Finances," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 96-26, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio, 2000. "Household Portfolios in Italy," CEPR Discussion Papers 2549, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. repec:bla:revinw:v:42:y:1996:i:4:p:433-51 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. John Weicher, 1996. "The Distribution of Wealth," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 650823, September.
    6. Edward N. Wolff, 1996. "International Comparisons Of Wealth Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 42(4), pages 433-451, December.
    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. Kennickell, Arthur & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2005. "Disentangling the importance of the precautionary saving motive," CFS Working Paper Series 2006/15, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).

    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. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2000. "An Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth from 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_307, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2003. "A rolling tide: changes in the distribution of wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2003. "A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the US, 1989-2001," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_393, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Arthur B. Kennickell, 2003. "A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001," Others 0311002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Alla A. Melkumian, 2006. "The opportunity cost of being constrained by the type of assets: Bonds only or stocks only," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 9, pages 325-343, November.
    6. Borsch-Supan, Axel & Reil-Held, Anette & Rodepeter, Ralf & Schnabel, Reinhold & Winter, Joachim, 2001. "The German Savings Puzzle," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 15-38, March.
    7. Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949–2016," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3469-3519.
    8. Pelizzon, Loriana & Weber, Guglielmo, 2009. "Efficient portfolios when housing needs change over the life cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2110-2121, November.
    9. Alicia H. Munnell & Francesca Golub-Sass & Dan Muldoon, 2009. "An Update on 401(k) Plans: Insights From the 2007 SCF," Issues in Brief ib2009-9-5, Center for Retirement Research, revised Mar 2009.
    10. Adams, Robert M. & Brevoort, Kenneth P. & Driscoll, John C., 2023. "Is lending distance really changing? Distance dynamics and loan composition in small business lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    11. Michael Haliassos & Christis Hassapis & Alex Karagrigoriou & George Kyriacou & George Syrichas & Michalis C. Michael, 2001. "Assets of Cyprus Households: Lessons from the first Cyprus Survey of Consumer Finances," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 0205, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    12. Gale, William & Pence, Karen, 2006. "Are Successive Generations Getting Wealthier, and If So, Why?Evidence from the 1990s," MPRA Paper 55502, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2007. "Down or Out: Assessing the Welfare Costs of Household Investment Mistakes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 707-747, October.
    14. Marion Kohler & Anthony Rossiter, 2005. "Property Owners in Australia: A Snapshot," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2005-03, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    15. Song Han, 2011. "Creditor Learning and Discrimination in Lending," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 1-27, October.
    16. Joachim Winter, 2002. "The impact of pension reforms and demography on stock markets," MEA discussion paper series 02021, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    17. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2000. "Household Portfolios in Italy," CSEF Working Papers 43, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    18. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Fight or Flight? Portfolio Rebalancing by Individual Investors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 301-348.
    19. Michael Haliassos & Alexander Michaelides, 2003. "Portfolio Choice and Liquidity Constraints," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(1), pages 143-177, February.
    20. Timm Bönke & Markus M. Grabka & Carsten Schröder & Edward N. Wolff, 2020. "A Head‐to‐Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 1140-1180, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

    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:wpa:wuwpma:0004054. 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: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.