This paper analyzes the evolution of tax progressivity in Sweden from both annual and lifetime perspectives. Using a rich micro panel with administrative records of incomes, taxes and benefits over the period 1968 - 2009, we calculate tax rates across the income distribution accounting for...

This paper develops and applies a method for decomposing cross section variability of earnings into components that are forecastable at the time students decide to go to college (heterogeneity) and components that are unforecastable. About 60 % of variability in returns to schooling is...

This paper provides empirical evidence on life-cycle patterns in the asset allocation of Swedish households. Data on household portfolio allocation are collected from the HINK surveys for the period 1982-1992, and portfolio shares of different asset categories are regressed on age, period, and...

Using a large Swedish longitudinal database for the period 1982-2005, I estimate and compare within-group inequality in persistent and transitory earnings among men with high-school and college degrees. Analyses of inequality over the life cycle reveal that experience-variance profiles of...

Who is wealthy? This paper presents empirical estimates of household movements into and out of the top percents of the wealth distribution over individual life cycles. There are life-cycle motives and precautionary motives for wealth accumulation. The opportunities to accumulate wealth create...

I estimate the effect of lottery winnings on peers' debt accumulation using administrative data from Norway. I identify neighbors of lottery winners, and estimate an average debt response of 2.1 percent of the lottery prize among households that live up to ten houses from the winner. Analyzing...

Recent research has shown that 'rich' households save at much higher rates than others (see Carroll (2000); Dynan Skinner and Zeldes (1996); Gentry and Hubbard (1998); Huggett (1996); Quadrini (1999)) This paper documents another large difference between the rich and the rest of the population:...

Today's dominant strain of macroeconomic models supposes that aggregate consumption can be understood by assuming the existence of a 'representative agent' whose behavior rationalizes observed outcomes. But representative agent models yield embarrassingly implausible (and empirically inaccurate)...