Comparing Wealth: Data Quality of the HFCS

Anita Tiefensee and Markus Grabka

No 1427, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: The Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) provides information about household wealth (real and financial assets as well as liabilities) from 15 Euro‐countries after the financial crisis of 2007/8. The survey will be the central dataset in this topic in the future. However, several aspects point to potential methodological constraints regarding crosscountry comparability. Therefore the aim of this paper is to get a better insight in the data quality of this important data source. We will first present a synopsis of cross‐country differences, which is the core of the paper. We will compare the sampling processes, the interview modes, the oversampling techniques, the unit and item non‐response rates and how itis dealt with them via weighing and imputation as well as further points which might restrict country comparability. In addition we give a first insight in the selectivity of item nonresponse in a cross‐national setting. We make use of logit models as well as apply a decomposition method suggested by Fairlie (1999, 2005) to identify differences in characteristics as well as structural (cultural) differences in the item non‐response missing process.

Keywords: Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS); data quality; crosscountry comparability; item non‐response; Fairlie decomposition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 D31 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 p.
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.490575.de/dp1427.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Comparing Wealth - Data Quality of the HFCS (2016)
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:diw:diwwpp:dp1427

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek ().