From 1989 to 2001, wealth in real terms increased overall among U.S. families. But characterizing distributional changes is much more complex; it depends on the specific questions asked. For example, there is evidence both from Forbes data on the 400 wealthiest Americans and from the SCF, which...

This paper summarizes the results of a focus group on saving and financial planning. The group consisted of eight individuals with relatively high income and wealth. The savings behavior of such people is of interest partly due to their large contribution to total personal saving. The...

There are very few sources of high-quality data on the dynamics of wealth accumulation. This paper uses newly-available data from the 1983-89 panel of the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine household saving and portfolio change over the 1980s. The 1983 SCF collected detailed information on...

This paper summarizes the results of a focus group on saving and financial planning. The group consisted of eight individuals with relatively high income and wealth. The savings behavior of such people is of interest partly due to their large contribution to total personal saving. The...

It is often suggested that reducing deposit insurance would reduce problems of moral hazard in the banking industry. However, little is known about likely effects of proposed reforms on household depositors. This study uses data from the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine the characteristics...

It is often suggested that reducing deposit insurance would reduce problems with moral hazard in the banking industry. However, little is known about likely effects of proposed reforms on household depositors. This study uses data from the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine the...

In discussions of household wealth, it is not surprising that discussion often tends to focus on the upper half of the wealth distribution: According to the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), that group held 97.5 percent of all directly owned household wealth. This paper investigates the...