To help shed light on the implications of intergenerational transfers for wealth inequality, this paper examines whether or not individuals who receive intergenerational transfers from their parents are more likely to leave bequests to their children than those who do not using data for Japan...

The topic of rising income inequality does not only gain in relevance since the two prominent reports by the OECD (Growing unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries, Paris 2008; Divided we stand-Why inequality keeps rising, Paris 2011) but rather since the financial crisis. So far...

The recently published Household Finance and Consumption Survey has revealed large differences in wealth inequality between the countries of the Euro area. We find a strong negative correlation between wealth inequality and homeownership rates across countries. We use two decomposition methods...

To help shed light on the implications of intergenerational transfers for wealth inequality, this paper uses data for Japan and the United States to examine whether individuals who receive intergenerational transfers from their parents are more likely to leave bequests to their children than...

We examine the issue of the widening wealth inequality in the People's Republic of China (PRC) from the perspective of housing. Using China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data from 2011, we find that the PRC's wealth inequality including housing is much larger than income inequality. Housing...

We introduce financial frictions into a simple two sector model of international trade with heterogeneous agents and investigate the impact of differences in the strength of financial institutions and wealth inequality on trade flows, capital movements and entrepreneurial migration. Distinct...

This paper presents new estimates of wealth inequality in Sweden during 2000-2012, linking wealth register data up to 2007 and individually capitalized wealth based on income and property tax registers for the period thereafter when a repeal of the wealth tax stopped the collection of individual...

We use new population-wide register data on inheritances and wealth in Sweden to estimate the causal impact of inheritances on wealth inequality. We find that inheritances reduce relative wealth inequality (e.g., the Gini coefficient falls by 5-10 percent) but that absolute dispersion increases....

This study examines from a cross-national perspective the importance of inheritance as a source of private wealth accumulation. Multivariate econometric analyses of harmonized survey data obtained from 11 European countries reveal that inheriting households own considerably more wealth than...

Davies et al. (2008, 2011) provided the first estimates of the global distribution of wealth, using 2000 as the benchmark year. These estimates have been revised and updated since 2010, and the purpose of this paper is to explain the ways in which the estimation methodology has evolved and...

Bislang wurden Verteilungswirkungen in der Debatte über geldpolitische Entscheidungen wenig Beachtung geschenkt. Vom Mandat der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) werden sie auch nicht umfasst. Angesichts der lang anhaltenden äußerst lockeren Geldpolitik und des im Januar 2015 gestarteten...

Japan is in the midst of a protracted spell of depressed economic activity. Japan's economic stagnation has occurred against a background of rising earnings risk. Occupational stability is falling as routine occupations disappear and implicit lifetime employment guarantees are gradually...

We use new population-wide register data on inheritances and wealth in Sweden to estimate the causal impact of inheritances on wealth inequality. We find that inheritances reduce relative wealth inequality (e.g., the Gini coefficient falls by 5–10 percent) but that absolute dispersion...

Trotz der erheblichen Effekte der Vermögensvererbung für die Fortschreibung von sozialer Ungleichheit zwischen den Generationen spricht sich sowohl in Deutschland als auch in Österreich eine Mehrheit der Bevölkerung gegen die Erbschaftssteuer aus. In diesem Papier untersuchen wir, wie Gegner...

This paper presents new estimates of wealth inequality in Sweden during 2000-2012, linking wealth register data up to 2007 and individually capitalized wealth based on income and property tax registers for the period thereafter when a repeal of the wealth tax stopped the collection of individual...

Derzeit vergeht kaum ein Tag, ohne dass Meldungen über wachsende Ungleichheit Schlagzeilen machen. Nach einer Studie von Credit Suisse besitzen 0,7 Prozent der Weltbevölkerung 45 Prozent des Vermögens. Die Organisation Oxfam behauptet, das Vermögen der Reichen sei in den letzten fünf Jahren...

In the catalogue of "Sustainable Development Goals" approved by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, financial market regulation is mainly described as an issue of social sustainability. This classification is appropriate because inadequate regulation leads to imbalances between profits...

In the debate on monetary policy decisions, to date, little attention has been paid to distributional effects. One reason for this is that they are not included in the mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB). Given the loose monetary policy stance in the euro area and the large-scale program...

Bislang wurden Verteilungswirkungen in der Debatte über geldpolitische Entscheidungen wenig Beachtung geschenkt. Vom Mandat der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) werden sie auch nicht umfasst. Angesichts der lang anhaltenden äußerst lockeren Geldpolitik und des im Januar 2015 gestarteten...

This lecture considers the case for consumer financial regulation in an environment where many households lack the knowledge to manage their financial affairs effectively. The lecture argues that financial ignorance is pervasive and unsurprising given the complexity of modern financial products,...

Davies et al. (2008, 2011) provided the first estimates of the global distribution of wealth, using 2000 as the benchmark year. These estimates have been revised and updated since 2010, and the purpose of this paper is to explain the ways in which the estimation methodology has evolved and...

To help shed light on the implications of intergenerational transfers for wealth inequality, this paper examines whether or not individuals who receive intergenerational transfers from their parents are more likely to leave bequests to their children than those who do not using data for Japan...

While most studies on wealth inequality focus on the inequality between households, this paper examines the distribution of wealth within couples. For this purpose, we make use of unique individual level micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). In married and cohabiting...

A fundamental question in social sciences relates to the effect of wealth inequality on economic growth. Yet, in tackling the question, researchers have had to use income as a proxy for wealth. We derive a global measure of wealth inequality from Forbes magazine's listing of billionaires and...

Using population representative survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and administrative pension records from the Statutory Pension Insurance, the authors compare four statistical matching techniques to complement survey information on net worth with social security wealth...

Analysis on wealth inequality based on survey data usually suffers from under-coverage of high-net-worth individuals. Especially this group of persons is of high relevance given their substantial share of the total net worth. As there is no tax data available in Germany, the largest fortunes can...