ESTIMATES OF HOUSEHOLD WEALTH INEQUALITY IN THE U.S., 1962–1983

The study has two major objectives. The first is to determine time trends in household wealth inequality in the U.S. over the 1962–83 period. Four concepts of wealth are analyzed: (i) total household wealth, defined as total household assets less liabilities; (ii) fungible wealth, defined as total household wealth less consumer durables and household inventories; (iii) financial wealth, defined as fungible wealth less equity in owner-occupied housing; and (iv) capital wealth, defined as financial wealth less currency, checking accounts, and time deposits. Relying on a variety of data sources, I find that wealth inequality remained relatively constant from about 1962 to 1973, fell sharply from about 1973 to about 1979, and then rose sharply between 1979 and 1983. Concentration in 1983 was greater than that in 1962 for financial and capital wealth but of similar magnitude for total and fungible wealth. The second, methodological in nature, is to analyze the effect on measured inequality of the alignment of raw survey data to national balance sheet totals. I find that the alignment process can significantly affect point estimates of household wealth distribution but does not generally affect the direction of inequality trends.     

WEALTH HOLDINGS AND POVERTY STATUS IN THE U.S.

Families below the poverty line are better off in terms of wealth than income. In 1962, the ratio of mean income between families below and above the poverty line is 0.19 and the ratio of mean wealth is 0.29. The corresponding ratios for 1983 are 0.16 and 0.19. On average, the elderly poor are better off in terms of wealth than the younger poor, particularly relative to their own income. However, the poor have become worse off in terms of wealth between 1962 and 1983, when their real income grew by 6 percent and their real wealth declined by 11 percent. The inclusion of pension and social security wealth in the household portfolio narrows the wealth gap between the poor and non-poor, particularly for families under 65 years of age. Alternative poverty rates are also calculated based on the inclusion of annuity flows from wealth in household income. The reduction in the poverty rate between 1962 and 1983, from 21 to 15 percent on the basis of the official rate, is considerably lower with these alternative definitions.     

TRENDS IN INEQUALITY USING CONSUMPTION-EXPENDITURES: THE U.S. FROM 1960 TO 1993

While much of the evidence suggests that there was an increase in inequality in the U.S. during the 1980s, the reasons are less evident. Using the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data, we find that the inequality of consumption-expenditures, as well as the inequality of other measures of resources, widened considerably during the 1980s. While previous studies suggest that increasing inequality is mainly due to increases in within group inequality, we show that by decomposing inequality by the interaction of family type and education almost three-fourths of the increase in inequality is accounted for by changes in inequality between groups and by shifts in the population.     

HOUSEHOLD SAVING IN THE '90s: EVIDENCE FROM CROSS-SECTION WEALTH SURVEYS

This paper uses a series of cross-section surveys to measure how wealth accumulation and active saving rates varied across cohort-groups during the early and mid 1990s. Our estimated rates of saving and wealth change across cohorts show a somewhat more dramatic life-cycle pattern than found in previous studies, in part because we use a new technique, and in part because the cross-section wealth surveys we use oversample the wealthiest families whose behavior dominates aggregate changes. Adjusting the wealth-change rates for bequests and subtracting out the capital gains component of wealth change move the estimates in the direction of results from previous studies, but the biggest changes in that direction result from excluding the top of the wealth distribution in each year.     

THE DISSAVING OF ANNUITY WEALTH AND MARKETABLE WEALTH IN RETIREMENT

This paper compares the automatic dissaving of annuity wealth with the discretionary dissaving of marketable wealth that would result from life-cycle consumption behavior by retired persons. In simulations of a life-cycle model based on the isoelastic utility function and realistic parameter values, we find that marketable wealth normally would be dissaved more rapidly than annuity wealth. This suggests that empirical findings that show the opposite relation-slow dissaving of marketable wealth being accompanied by faster dissaving of annuity wealth (or total wealth)-should not be interpreted as evidence that supports the life-cycle theory.     

RELATIVE INEQUALITY AND POVERTY IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES USING ALTERNATIVE EQUIVALENCE SCALES

We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study to show the sensitivity of measures of relative economic well-being of persons in the U.S. and Germany using official equivalence scales and consumption-based country-specific equivalence scales developed for the two countries. Overall inequality and poverty levels are found not to be sensitive to the equivalence scale used. However, the official German equivalence scale yields quite different results from the others with respect to the relative income and poverty levels of vulnerable groups within the population, especially older single people.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF HOUSING OUTPUT: U.S. AND SOVIET CASE STUDIES

This paper examines the measurement of the output of the Housing industry in real GNP accounts of the U.S., the Soviet Union, and selected OECD countries. These real GNP accounts make use of quite different Housing indexes, based on different types of data. This paper's major empirical finding is that the (measured) growth rate of Housing output can be extremely sensitive to the type of index used.
After reviewing the concept of housing quality, the paper presents U.S. and Soviet case studies. The BEA and the CIA do not use identical procedures to measure Housing output for the U.S. and the Soviet Union: the BEA measures many more aspects of housing quality improvements than the CIA does. This difference in the two agencies' procedures increases the growth rate of the US. Real Estate industry relative to the growth rate of the Soviet Housing industry. The idea behind the two case studies is to remeasure Housing output far the Soviet Union (U.S.) using an index that approximates the BEA (CIA) index. The purpose of these studies is the calculation of numerical magnitudes: to what degrees are the levels and growth rates of Housing sensitive to the type of index that is used. The calculations for the U.S. are useful because they show the important role of housing quality growth in the U.S., and because they make the magnitudes reported for the Soviet Union more credible. The Soviet case study provides numerical support for the proposition that the post-WWII growth rate of Soviet housing quality has been considerable and exceeds the growth rate implicit in the CIA output figures.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AND WEALTH IN JAPAN

This paper reviews research on the distribution of income and wealth in Japan, identifies sources of data on income and wealth, and describes limitations of these data. Evidence that Japan's poorest income groups are relatively well-off is convincing, but there is less evidence that the overall distribution of income in Japan is more equal than in other OECD countries. Agricultural policy, social welfare policy, the tax system, trends in earnings differentials, and the role of the Japanese family are among the many factors that have shaped Japan's income distribution. The rapid appreciation of the stock market and land prices during the late 1980s led to greater inequality in the distribution of wealth. Rapid population aging is expected to lead to an increase in total national wealth relative to national income which may have an adverse impact on the distribution of income.     

U.S. INCOME, SAVING, AND WEALTH, 1929—1969

The objective of this paper is to present income and expenditure accounts, accumulation accounts, and the asset side of the wealth accounts for the U.S. private national economy in current and constant prices. These accounts are integrated with the production and factor outlay accounts for the U.S. private domestic economy in current and constant prices given in our earlier papers. Taken together, these accounts constitute a complete accounting system in current and constant prices for the private sector of the U.S. economy.
Our complete accounting system incorporates a new concept of the standard of living, defined as the ratio of the quantity index of gross private national expenditures to the quantity index of gross private national consumer receipts. Our concept of the standard of living is similar but not identical to our concept of total factor productivity. Changes in the private standard of living reflect both changes in total factor productivity and changes in the proportion of the total product consumed in the public sector.     

THE ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF INDUSTRIAL POLICY: SOME LESSONS FROM THE U.S. AND ABROAD

The accelerating United States trade deficit has again focused widespread political attention on industrial policy issues. However, given the breadth and complexity of the industrial policy issues, we can be confident that strengthening the U.S. international trade position will not be sufficient to quell concern over this area of economic policy.     

INEQUALITY AND MOBILITY OF WEALTH IN SWEDEN 1983/184–1992/193

Using longitudinal data which include real estate wealth, financial assets as well as consumer durables, changes in the distribution of wealth in Sweden are related to major changes in asset prices and in incentives to hold various assets in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Our analysis of the mobility of wealth indicates that decile mobility is higher in Sweden than in the U.S., while the analysis of who is gaining and who is loosing shows results similar to those of previous studies.     

90年代广东省产业结构变动趋向时空差异分析

本文通过对90年代广东产业结构变动的时空形态进行分析研究,揭示了广东产业结构变动趋向的时空差异,探讨形成这种差异的原因,并对广东今后产业结构走向及产业结构在地区间的协调发展提出建议。     

东北区域网络利用水平现状、原因及其对策

基于SOHU．COM网站提供的中国区域网站建设的基础数据,文章描述了东北网站建设现状,分析了网络利用水平较低的主要原因——信息基础设施落后、财政紧张和软环境落后,在此基础上,提出了一些建议和对策。     

THE INEQUALITY OF EMPLOYMENT AND SELF-EMPLOYMENT INCOMES: A DECOMPOSITION ANALYSIS FOR THE U.K.

U.K. employment and self-employment income inequality are analysed over 1979–94/95. Robust inequality decompositions reveal occupation to be a relatively important and hitherto neglected determinant of earnings inequality. In contrast, self-employment income inequality is harder to explain, although occupation is also the most important single factor in the mid-1990s. The paper also provides a novel implementation of a decomposition of changes in Kolm's inequality index.     

AN EVALUATION OF SUBJECTIVE POVERTY DEFINITIONS: COMPARING RESULTS FROM THE U.S. AND THE NETHERLANDS

In this paper, results of applying the subjective definition of poverty, introduced by Goedhart et al. (1977), in the U.S. and the Netherlands are compared. This definition focuses on the monetary amounts which people consider necessary to make ends meet for their households as provided in response to the Minimum Income Question (MIQ). National data from both countries in the early 1980s are analyzed. In regressions of reported minimum income, corrections are made for the omission of income components and selective non-response. For the first time the relationship between fixed expenditures and the MIQ is examined. Factors significantly related to reported minimum income include household income, household composition, age, education, sex, region, fixed expenditures, and whether the household experienced recent income changes. The income elasticity appears to be smaller in the U.S. than in the Netherlands, while the effects of other socioeconomic factors are greater. On average, the resulting subjective income thresholds are above official poverty lines, but more so in the U.S. than in the Nerherlands. Whether thresholds based on answers to MIQs should be regarded as poverty lines remains open to question.     

THE CONCENTRATION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN AMERICA, 1969

This essay focuses on the problems of estimating the share of America's personal wealth in the hands of affluent individuals by a technique known as the estate multiplier method. Rather than exploring these problems in an empirical vacuum, we first present some results from the most recent estimates of the distribution of U.S. personal wealth.¹ The estimates—for the year 1969—are then used as a basis for gauging the sensitivity of estate multiplier estimates to variations in approach.
Section I presents new empirical findings dealing with the asset holdings of top wealth-holders and the super rich, and with the shares of specific assets owned by them. Also presented is information about the sex and marital status of the super rich.
Section II discusses various technical aspects of the estate multiplier as applied to federal estate tax returns. The main concern is with the weighting process, but attention is paid to the fact that estate tax returns filed in a given year are not for decedents who died in that year or any single year, and to the problems of adjusting the face value of life insurance to cash surrender value.     

RANK AND QUANTITY MOBILITY IN THE EMPIRICAL DYNAMICS OF INEQUALITY

Horizontal and vertical measures of inequality are related through mobility. The paper draws attention to two types of mobility: quantity mobility, which refers to mobility in income itself, and rank mobility, which refers to mobility in the position in the distribution of income. Individually matched census data for earnings in Israel are used to illustrate these concepts empirically. Mobility is measured between 1983 and 1995. It is shown that earnings in Israel are highly mobile. The high degree of earnings mobility implies that horizontal measures of inequality considerably overstate the underlying level of inequality. The method of errors in variables is used to distinguish between current and permanent mobility and inequality. Permanent earnings are more equal than current earnings and less mobile. Finally, the methodology is applied to PSID. It is shown that earnings were more mobile in Israel than in the United States.     

U.S. INCOME MOBILITY IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES

This paper focuses on three questions: (1) Was mobility within the income distribution in the 1980s different from the 1970s? (2) Is there as much mobility when some measure of permanent income is used? and (3) Does movement within the income distribution imply real income changes'? Income mobility between 1969 and 1976, and between 1979 and 1986 is examined using real family income from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results show that there is considerable movement within the income distribution when both annual and permanent income is used. This movement, however is generally not very great in either direction.