Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 25.
(refine search)
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 ...
Report
Have US Households Depleted All the Excess Savings They Accumulated during the Pandemic?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, US households accumulated a historically high volume of personal savings. As the crisis waned, personal savings started to decline. Economists disagree on whether households have drained their excess savings, and they disagree on which income group is more likely to have done so. The lack of consensus stems from different assumptions about today’s long-term saving rate, which is used as a benchmark to define excess savings. If households need to set aside a higher share of their income now relative to before the pandemic, then pandemic-era excess savings have ...
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.
Working Paper
Wealth Inequality and Return Heterogeneity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Wealth inequality in the U.S., measured by the top 1% wealth share, experienced dramatic changes in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Economic theory suggests that the key to understanding wealth inequality is heterogeneity in the return to net worth across households. To understand the dynamics of wealth inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic, we develop a novel methodology that allows us to estimate the returns to net worth for different groups of households at relatively high frequency. We show that portfolio heterogeneity and asset price movements are the main determinants of ...
The Real State of Family Wealth: Will COVID-19 Worsen Racial, Educational and Generational Gaps in the U.S.?
A new quarterly assessment tracks the pandemic’s impact on wealth trends by demographic groups.
“Parasite,” COVID-19, and U.S. Wealth Inequality
The movie “Parasite” focuses on two South Korean families on the opposite ends of the wealth spectrum. What insights can it provide about wealth inequality in the U.S.?
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 ...
Newsletter
Income and Wealth Inequality
Income and wealth are becoming more unequal over time. The September 2022 issue of Page One Economics discusses how income and wealth inequality are measured, what drives differences among individuals and households, and how growing inequality may affect the overall economy.
How Does Human Capital Affect Wealth Inequality?
Accounting for human capital can change the distribution of wealth and some common measures of wealth inequality.
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 ...