On the Evolution of the US Consumer Wealth Distribution

Winfried Koeniger and Thomas Hintermaier

No 7850, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We use all available waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances to document the evolution of the wealth distribution in the US since the 1980s. We then rely on the shape of this distribution to estimate a life-cycle incomplete markets model. We find that considering a wide range of net-worth percentiles delivers very precise estimates of the structural parameters, impatience and risk aversion. The estimated model predicts some of the observed changes of the net-worth distribution, in particular for young consumers between ages 26 and 35.

Keywords: Incomplete markets; Life cycle; Simulated method of moments; Wealth distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-06
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Journal Article: On the Evolution of the US Consumer Wealth Distribution (2011)
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