IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bis/bisqtr/1603f.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wealth inequality and monetary policy

Author

Listed:
  • Dietrich Domanski
  • Michela Scatigna
  • Anna Zabai

Abstract

This feature explores the recent evolution of household wealth inequality in advanced economies by looking at valuation effects on household assets and liabilities. Using household survey data, we analyse the possible drivers of wealth inequality and the potential effect of monetary policy through its impact on interest rates and asset prices. Our simulation suggests that wealth inequality has risen since the Great Financial Crisis. While low interest rates and rising bond prices have had a negligible impact on wealth inequality, rising equity prices have been a key driver of inequality. A recovery in house prices has only partly offset this effect. Abstracting from general equilibrium effects on savings, borrowing and human wealth, this suggests that monetary policy may have added to inequality to the extent that it has boosted equity prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Dietrich Domanski & Michela Scatigna & Anna Zabai, 2016. "Wealth inequality and monetary policy," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:bisqtr:1603f
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1603f.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1603f.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam, Klaus & Tzamourani, Panagiota, 2016. "Distributional consequences of asset price inflation in the Euro Area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 172-192.
    2. Saez, Emmanuel & Zucman, Gabriel, 2014. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 10227, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. John H. Rogers & Chiara Scotti & Jonathan H. Wright, 2014. "Evaluating Asset-Market Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy: A Cross-Country Comparison," International Finance Discussion Papers 1101, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    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. Pedro S. Amaral, 2017. "Monetary Policy and Inequality," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue January.
    2. Albert, Juan-Francisco & Gómez-Fernández, Nerea, 2018. "Monetary policy and the redistribution of net worth in the US," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91320, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Eksi, Ozan & Tas, Bedri Kamil Onur, 2017. "Unconventional monetary policy and the stock market’s reaction to Federal Reserve policy actions," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 136-147.
    4. Campbell, Douglas L. & Lusher, Lester, 2019. "The impact of real exchange rate shocks on manufacturing workers: An autopsy from the MORG," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 12-28.
    5. Junyi Zhu, 2014. "Bracket Creep Revisited - with and without r > g: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 23(3), pages 106-158, November.
    6. Anastasios Evgenidis & Apostolos Fasianos, 2019. "Monetary Policy and Wealth Inequalities in Great Britain: Assessing the role of unconventional policies for a decade of household data," Papers 1912.09702, arXiv.org.
    7. Wookjae Heo & John E. Grable & Barbara O’Neill, 2017. "Wealth Accumulation Inequality: Does Investment Risk Tolerance and Equity Ownership Drive Wealth Accumulation?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 209-225, August.
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/vbu6kd1s68o6r34k5bcm3iopv is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony Atkinson & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Distributional National Accounts (DINA) Guidelines : Concepts and Methods used in WID.world," Working Papers 201602, World Inequality Lab.
    10. İshak Demi̇r & Burak A. Eroğlu & Seçi̇l Yildirim‐Karaman, 2022. "Heterogeneous Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy on the Bond Yields across the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1425-1457, August.
    11. Shin-ichi Fukuda & Tsutomu Doita, 2016. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and its External Effects: Evidence from Japan's Exports," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 54(1), pages 59-79, March.
    12. Xavier Gabaix & Jean‐Michel Lasry & Pierre‐Louis Lions & Benjamin Moll, 2016. "The Dynamics of Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2071-2111, November.
    13. Pagliari, Maria Sole, 2024. "Does one (unconventional) size fit all? Effects of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies on the euro area economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    14. Francesco Casalena, 2024. "Back to normal? Assessing the Effects of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Tightening," IHEID Working Papers 14-2024, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    15. Ampudia, Miguel & Ehrmann, Michael & Strasser, Georg, 2023. "The effect of monetary policy on inflation heterogeneity along the income distribution," Working Paper Series 2858, European Central Bank.
    16. Venkatasubramanian, Venkat & Luo, Yu & Sethuraman, Jay, 2015. "How much inequality in income is fair? A microeconomic game theoretic perspective," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 435(C), pages 120-138.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5srl83htc08lnqmtptsrb72rt9 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Joshua Aizenman, 2015. "Internationalization of the RMB, Capital Market Openness and Financial Reforms in China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 444-460, August.
    19. Robert N. McCauley & Patrick McGuire & Vladyslav Sushko, 2015. "Global dollar credit: links to US monetary policy and leverage," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(82), pages 187-229.
    20. Kuhn, Moritz & Bartscher, Alina & Schularick, Moritz & Wachtel, Paul, 2021. "Monetary policy and racial inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 15734, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Rishabh Kumar, 2015. "Wealth accumulation and aggregate demand stagnation in a two class economy with applications to the United States," Working Papers 1526, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    22. Rishabh Kumar, 2016. "Personal Savings from Top Incomes and Household Wealth Accumulation in the United States," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 224-240, July.

    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:bis:bisqtr:1603f. 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: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.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.