Macro and Micro Estimates of Household Wealth

Mary Cussen, Reamonn Lydon () and Cormac O'Sullivan
Additional contact information
Cormac O'Sullivan: Central Bank of Ireland

No 11/RT/18, Research Technical Papers from Central Bank of Ireland

Abstract: This paper compares estimates of the financial wealth of Irish households from the Irish Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) with estimates from statistical and administrative data sources. This cross-checking exercise yields three key results. First, like most wealth surveys in other countries, the Irish HFCS significantly under-records the total value of deposits held by Irish households: we estimate the HFCS captures around one-third of the aggregate figure. Second, this level of under-recording is broadly similar across the distribution of deposits. Thus, the HFCS appears to provide an accurate picture of the distribution of household deposits. Third, the degree of under-recording does not appear to be heavily concentrated in any one population group, i.e. by region or age group. With regard to the reason for the under-recording, we find no one single factor behind the underrecording. Issues identified in the survey design literature around sample design (sampling the wealthy), item and unit non-response all appear to play some role.

Keywords: Assets; deposits; balance sheet; households; wealth. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.centralbank.ie/docs/default-source/pub ... llivan).pdf?sfvrsn=4 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cbi:wpaper:11/rt/18

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Technical Papers from Central Bank of Ireland Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Fiona Farrelly ().