Since household wealth surveys have been widely used to study saving and other issues, it is important to examine the reliability of the various survey estimates of wealth. In this paper, the authors assess the quality characteristics of the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Men and the...

Economists make extensive use of two separate descriptions of private saving behavior: the life-cycle (or overlapping generations) model, and models with intergenerational altruism. Analysis of the two frameworks is quite different, as are many of the long-run policy implications. This paper...

Data suggest that the distribution of wealth among households in the USA and UK has become more equal over the last century, though, at least for the USA, the pattern may have reversed recently. This paper shows that a model in which all households save for life-cycle reasons and some for...