Revised and extended national wealth series: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA

This paper presents updated series of national wealth and of capital-labor shares of na- tional income for the eight countries covered by Piketty and Zucman (2014a): Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA. It discusses the adap- tation of the series from the SNA93 to the SNA2008, the inclusion of natural capital (i.e. forestry land, mineral and energy resources) within the concept of national wealth and the division of national housing across households and other sectors. I find that adopting the SNA2008 has no relevant consequences for aggregate macro wealth or for the net-of-depreciation capital share. However, gross-of-depreciation capital shares are higher, likely due to the inclusion of R&D as investment in the new system of accounts. Overall, new series reveal that average private wealth to national income ratios have been steadily increasing in recent years with capital-labor shares remaining relatively constant at their 2010 values.