Are survey data underestimating the inequality of wealth?

Jaanika Meriküll and Tairi Room

No wp2019-05, Bank of Estonia Working Papers from Bank of Estonia

Abstract: This paper uses administrative data from registers and survey data from interviews to analyse unit and item non-response in a wealth survey. It draws on the Estonian Household Finance and Consumption Survey dataset, where the survey data on income and wealth are complemented by information on the same variables from administrative sources for all the people sampled. The results show that the non-response contributes to the underestimation of wealth inequality in the survey data, as the Gini coefficient is underestimated by 6 percentage points and also the top wealth shares are substantially underestimated. The downward bias is originating from item non-response and not from unit non-response. Imputation can address the problems caused by item non-response across most of the net wealth distribution, but does not eliminate the downward bias at the top of the wealth distribution.

Keywords: wealth distribution; unit non-response; item non-response; participation bias; wealth survey; income survey; Household Finance and Consumption Survey; Estonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-10-29, Revised 2019-10-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://dx.doi.org/10.23656/25045520/052019/0167 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Are survey data underestimating the inequality of wealth? (2022)
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