Search Results
Speech
The outlook for the U.S. economy in 2018 and beyond: remarks at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, New York City
Remarks at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, New York City.
Working Paper
A Comment on 'Wealth Inequality and Endogenous Growth' by Byoungchan Lee
How does wealth inequality affect economic growth? Byoungchan Lee answers this question by developing a heterogeneous-agent model and augmenting it with endogenous firm innovation. The novel channel is that rising wealth concentration reduces aggregate demand, which gives firms a disincentive to spend on R&D and therefore leads to slower productivity growth. In this discussion, we first explain the difference in calibration strategy between Lee’s approach and the common approach in the literature, and then discuss its quantitative implications for the effect of rising inequality on ...
Briefing
Trade, Specialization, Property Rights and Wealth Inequality: A Conference Recap
Economists from the Richmond Fed, research universities and other institutions met in Richmond for a conference in September focused on insights from macroeconomic development. Researchers presented on the topics of trade, firm specialization, property rights and wealth inequality. This Economic Brief summarizes those presentations.
How Does Human Capital Affect Wealth Inequality?
Accounting for human capital can change the distribution of wealth and some common measures of wealth inequality.
Five Ideas to Support Families amid Growing Wealth Inequality
Setting up emergency savings and creating new ways to build wealth are some ideas that could increase the economic resiliency of U.S. families.
Discussion Paper
Racial and Ethnic Inequalities in Household Wealth Persist
Disparities in wealth are pronounced across racial and ethnic groups in the United States. As part of an ongoing series on inequality and equitable growth, we have been documenting the evolution of these gaps between Black, Hispanic, and white households, in this case from the first quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2023 for a variety of assets and liabilities for a pandemic-era picture. We find that real wealth grew and that the pace of growth for Black, Hispanic, and white households was very similar across this timeframe—yet gaps across groups persist.
Journal Article
Monetary Policy and Inequality
This Commentary examines the link between monetary policy and income and wealth inequality by reviewing the theoretical channels that have been proposed and examining the empirical evidence on their importance. The analysis suggests that the magnitude of any redistributive consequences of conventional monetary policy seems to be small. Evidence that unconventional monetary policies have led to increases in inequality is still inconclusive.
Working Paper
Wealth Distribution and Retirement Preparation among Early Savers
This paper develops a new combined-wealth measure by augmenting data on net worth from the Survey of Consumer Finances with estimates of defined benefit (DB) pension and expected Social Security wealth. We use this concept to explore retirement preparation among two groups of households in pre-retirement years (aged 40 through 49 and 50 through 59), and to explore the concentration of wealth. We find evidence of moderate, but rising, shortfalls in retirement preparation. We also show that including DB pension and Social Security wealth results in markedly lower measures of wealth ...
Working Paper
Seven Economic Facts About the U.S. Racial Wealth Gap
Using data from the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances and the U.S. Census Bureau, along with data and research from other sources, this paper presents seven economic facts about the racial wealth gap in the U.S. We present data on racial disparities in income, employment, homeownership, education, access to credit, and retirement savings – all factors that contribute to a significant and persistent gap in net worth between households of different races and ethnicities, particularly between Black households and White households. While none of the economic factors listed fully explains the ...
Working Paper
Uninsured risk, stagnation, and fiscal policy
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 disappearing. At the same time, earnings in some high-skilled occupations have continued to grow. The resulting polarization in earnings has also been accompanied by an increase in wealth inequality. We develop a framework that relates these observations. In our model, an increase in uninsured earnings risk ...