IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc16/145604.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Pattern of Home Ownership Across Age Cohorts and its Impact on the German Net Wealth Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Schmidt, Tobias
  • Alik-Lagrange, Arthur

Abstract

We analyze the link between homeownership and the net wealth distribution using household-level micro data from Germany and the US. We are particularly interested in the effect of the pattern of ownership across cohorts. Given that wealth accumulates over the life-cycle and that owners are wealthier than renters, past tenure choices, affecting today’s share of owners for different cohorts, should be related to current wealth levels and inequality. In order to gauge the effect of the ownership structure over cohorts on the distribution of net wealth we impose the homeownership pattern of the US on Germany. This leads to a large increase in the German median net wealth and reduces wealth inequality. Past tenure choice seems to affects today’s net wealth distribution. Some of the effects can be attributed to the difference in ownership shares between old cohorts in Germany and the US, but this effect appears to be less pronounced than expected.

Suggested Citation

  • Schmidt, Tobias & Alik-Lagrange, Arthur, 2016. "The Pattern of Home Ownership Across Age Cohorts and its Impact on the German Net Wealth Distribution," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145604, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145604
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/145604/1/VfS_2016_pid_6490.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    2. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Alena Bicakova & Eva M. Sierminska, 2008. "Mortgage Market Maturity and Homeownership Inequality among Young Households: A Five-Country Perspective," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 90, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    5. Grunert, Ruth, 2003. "Sind Haushalte mit Wohneigentum sparsamer als Mieterhaushalte?," IWH Discussion Papers 171/2003, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Silos Pedro, 2007. "Housing Tenure and Wealth Distribution in Life Cycle Economies," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-24, August.
    7. Jesse Bricker & Arthur B. Kennickell & Kevin B. Moore & John Edward Sabelhaus, 2012. "Changes in U.S. family finances from 2007 to 2010: evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 98(June), pages 1-80.
    8. von Kalckreuth, Ulf & Eisele, Martin & Le Blanc, Julia & Schmidt, Tobias & Zhu, Junyi, 2012. "The PHF: A comprehensive panel survey on household finances and wealth in Germany," Discussion Papers 13/2012, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    9. Skinner, Jonathan, 1989. "Housing wealth and aggregate saving," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 305-324, May.
    10. Dietz, Robert D. & Haurin, Donald R., 2003. "The social and private micro-level consequences of homeownership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 401-450, November.
    11. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2004. "Aging and Housing Equity: Another Look," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 127-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Network, 2013. "The Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey - Results from the first wave," Statistics Paper Series 2, European Central Bank.
    13. Smith, Lawrence B & Rosen, Kenneth T & Fallis, George, 1988. "Recent Developments in Economic Models of Housing Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 29-64, March.
    14. Di, Zhu Xiao & Belsky, Eric & Liu, Xiaodong, 2007. "Do homeowners achieve more household wealth in the long run?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 274-290, November.
    15. Jesse Bricker & Arthur B. Kennickell & Kevin B. Moore & John Edward Sabelhaus, 2012. "Changes in U.S. family finances from 2007 to 2010: evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 98(June), June.
    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. Alik-Lagrange, Arthur & Schmidt, Tobias, 2015. "The pattern of home ownership across cohorts and its impact on the net wealth distribution: Empirical evidence from Germany and the US," Discussion Papers 11/2015, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Benítez-Silva, Hugo & Eren, Selçuk & Heiland, Frank & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 2015. "How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 12-25.
    3. Tobias Schmidt & Julia Le Blanc, 2017. "Do homeowners save more? – Evidence from the Panel on Household Finances (PHF)," ERES eres2017_110, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    4. 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.
    5. Turner, Tracy M. & Luea, Heather, 2009. "Homeownership, wealth accumulation and income status," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 104-114, June.
    6. Glenn Abela & William Gatt, 2021. "Saving behaviour in Malta: Insights from the Household Budgetary Survey," CBM Working Papers WP/02/2021, Central Bank of Malta.
    7. Bucciol, Alessandro & Veronesi, Marcella, 2014. "Teaching children to save: What is the best strategy for lifetime savings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-17.
    8. Becker, Gideon, 2015. "Econometric analysis of the wealth gap between East and West Germany," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 87, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    9. Jan Rouwendal, 2009. "Housing Wealth and Household Portfolios in an Ageing Society," De Economist, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 1-48, March.
    10. Kevin Milligan, 2005. "Life‐cycle asset accumulation and allocation in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 1057-1106, August.
    11. Ralph Stevens & Jennifer Alonso Garcia & Hazel Bateman & Arthur van Soest & Johan Bonekamp, 2022. "Saving preferences after retirement," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/342267, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Zoë Oldfield & James P. Smith, 2016. "House Price Volatility and the Housing Ladder," NBER Chapters, in: Insights in the Economics of Aging, pages 87-119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Giordana, Gastón & Ziegelmeyer, Michael, 2020. "Stress testing household balance sheets in Luxembourg," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 115-138.
    14. Lagomarsino, Bruno Cardinale & Rossi, Martin A., 2024. "JUE insight: The unintended effect of Argentina's subsidized homeownership lottery program on intimate partner violence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    15. Skinner, Jonathan, 1996. "The dynamic efficiency cost of not taxing housing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 397-417, March.
    16. Dimitris Christelis & Michael Ehrmann & Dimitris Georgarakos, 2021. "Exploring Differences in Household Debt across the United States and Euro Area Countries," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(2-3), pages 477-501, March.
    17. Goodstein, Ryan M. & Rhine, Sherrie L.W., 2017. "The effects of bank and nonbank provider locations on household use of financial transaction services," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 91-107.
    18. Joseph G. Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski, 2005. "The Role of Permanent Income and Demographics in Black/White Differences in Wealth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    19. 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.
    20. Frank Cowell & Eleni Karagiannaki & Abigail Mcknight, 2018. "Accounting for Cross†Country Differences in Wealth Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 332-356, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General

    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:zbw:vfsc16:145604. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.