Wealth is distributed more unevenly than income, and one contributing factor might be that richer households earn higher portfolio returns. I uncover one channel that causes portfolio returns to be increasing in wealth: Poorer households consistently buy risky assets in booms-when expected...

This paper examines the dynamics of wealth and income inequality along the business cycle and assesses how they are related to fluctuations in the functional income distribution. In a panel estimation for OECD countries between 1970 and 2016 we find that on average income inequality - measured...

How much does inequality matter for the business cycle and vice versa? Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a heterogeneous-agent New-Keynesian (HANK) model with incomplete markets and portfolio choice between liquid and illiquid assets. The model enlarges the set of shocks and...

This paper produces new evidence and stylised facts on housing, wealth accumulation and wealth distribution, relying on an in-depth analysis of micro-based data on household wealth across OECD countries. The analysis addresses several questions: i) How is homeownership and housing tenure...

The lifecycle approach is the workhorse to model saving decisions of individuals. It conjectures individuals preferring a constant consumption stream across their lifecycle saving till retirement and dis-saving thereafter. The reality is often at odd with this assumption giving rise to our...

Although older generations have substantially more wealth than their recent predecessors did at the same age, younger generations do not. Bringing together UK data on those born between the 1930s and 1980s and a lifecycle model of saving, I quantify whether this is due to changes in preferences...

This paper examines long-term trends in aggregate wealth and inheritance and in their distributions, focusing on developed economies. A key stylized fact is that wealth is less equally distributed than income. Financial assets predominate among the wealthy, while owner-occupied housing is...

This paper examines long-term trends in aggregate wealth and inheritance and in their distributions, focusing on developed economies. A key stylized fact is that wealth is less equally distributed than income. Financial assets predominate among the wealthy, while owner-occupied housing is...