A Head-to-Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States

Timm Bönke, Markus Grabka, Carsten Schröder and Edward N. Wolff

No 899, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: We provide levels of, compositions of, and inequalities in household augmented wealth – defined as the sum of net worth and pension wealth – for two countries: the United States and Germany. Pension wealth makes up a considerable portion of household wealth: about 48% in the United States and 61% in Germany. The higher share in Germany narrows the wealth gap between the two countries: While average net worth in the United States (US$337,000 in 2013) is about 1.8 times higher than in Germany, augmented wealth (US$651,000) is only 1.4 times higher. Further, the inclusion of pension wealth in household wealth reduces the Gini coefficient from 0.892 to 0.701 in the United States and from 0.765 to 0.511 in Germany.

Keywords: net worth; pension wealth; augmented wealth; wealth portfolio; SOEP; SCF (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 H55 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 p.
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Head‐to‐Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States (2020)
Journal Article: A Head-to-Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States (2020)
Working Paper: A Head-to-Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States (2018)
Working Paper: A Head-to-Head Comparison of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States (2017)
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