The authors use the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances to document a boom in home ownership and mortgage borrowing among young families in the years leading up to the recent financial crisis. Many young families lost more of their wealth during the downturn than middle-aged and...

Differences in college and post-graduate degree attainment alone explain less than half of Black-White and Hispanic-White wealth gaps in a standard wealth regression. Differences in family structure and measures of luck such as income windfalls and inheritances explain even less. Measures of...