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Ponds and streams: wealth and income in the U.S., 1989 to 2007

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  • Arthur B. Kennickell

Abstract

Much discussion treats the working definitions of wealth and income as if they were self-evident, but definitional choices can make substantial differences in the overall picture. To provide a clear basis on which to examine family wealth and income their interrelationship, this paper begins with a basic discussion of a range of possible measures of those concepts. Using the measures developed, the paper examines the distributions of wealth and income and their joint properties using data from the 1989?2007 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Among other things, the data show a complicated pattern of shifts in the wealth distribution, with clear gains across the broad middle and at the top. For income, there is a more straightforward picture of rising inequality. Over this period, wealth as a fraction of income moved up across both the distributions of wealth and income. Nonetheless, their joint copula distributions (a type of distribution with uniform margins) do not show noticeable changes over this time. The consistent pattern is that very high wealth and income and very low wealth and income go together, but in between these poles, the relationship is fairly diffuse. The paper also presents information on the composition of wealth and income over the 18-year period; the general patterns of holdings across the distributions did not change markedly, but there were some important shifts. For wealth, debt increased as a share of assets across the wealth distribution, the share of principal residences rose mainly below the median of net worth, the share of tax-deferred retirement accounts rose and the share of other financial assets declined. For income, the clearest change was a general decline in the relative importance of capital income other than that from businesses.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.).
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2009-13
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    7. Kennickell, Arthur B., 2007. "Considerations in the estimation of retirement wealth: Comments on "The retirement wealth of the baby boom generation" by Edward N. Wolff," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 41-48, January.
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    Cited by:

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    2. 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.
    3. Anthony B. Atkinson & Salvatore Morelli, 2014. "Chartbook of economic inequality," Working Papers 324, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Global Wealth Inequality," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 109-138, August.
    5. Michael, Bryane & Hartwell, Christopher A. & Ho, Gary, 2013. "Does Financial Market Development Explain (or at Least Predict) the Demand for Wealth Management and Private Banking Services in Developing Markets?," EconStor Preprints 109960, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Kaymak, Barış & Poschke, Markus, 2016. "The evolution of wealth inequality over half a century: The role of taxes, transfers and technology," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-25.
    7. 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, August.
    8. Matthew S. Rutledge & Steven A. Sass & Jorge D. Ramos-Mercado, 2017. "How Does Occupational Access for Older Workers Differ by Education?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 283-305, September.
    9. Matthias Kredler & Daniel Barczyk, 2012. "Inequality and Asset Prices," 2012 Meeting Papers 929, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Richard C. Sutch, 2016. "The One-Percent across Two Centuries: A Replication of Thomas Piketty’s Data on the Distribution of Wealth for the United States," Working Papers 201602, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
    11. Aboohamidi, Abbas & Chidmi, Benaissa, 2015. "Changes in the Wealth of American Households during the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis in the U.S," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205451, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Fernholz, Ricardo T., 2016. "A Model of economic mobility and the distribution of wealth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 168-192.
    13. Arkadiusz Sieron, 2017. "Inflation and Income Inequality," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2017(6), pages 633-645.
    14. 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.
    15. David Gallusser & Matthias Krapf, 2019. "Joint Income-Wealth Inequality: An Application Using Administrative Tax Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 7876, CESifo.
    16. Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin Hassett, 2015. "Capital Taxation in the 21st Century," NBER Working Papers 20871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    Keywords

    Wealth; Income distribution;

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