This paper estimates rates of return on wealth across gross wealth groups by matching individual-level survey data with macroeconomic return data for Germany. Using machine learning for more detailed financial asset categories, we find that the average nominal rate of return on gross assets for...

The increasing concentration of income and wealth on the national and international level is a topic that has received increased attention both in social science research as well as public policy debates. While data availability is a well-known and often-lamented problem in wealth studies,...

Will ageing societies in Europe lead to a new savings glut? To address this potential consequence of demographic change, we assess the relationship between population ageing and safe assets in the euro area, using data from the Eurosystem's Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Our...

Asset accumulation in later life is a pressing issue in Japan due to the growing gap between life expectancy (87.14 years for women, 81.09 years for men in 2023) and the retirement age (65 or less). This gap heightens financial insecurity, emphasizing the need to meet asset goals by 65....