Comparing Micro and Macro Sources for Household Accounts in the United States: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Lisa Dettling, Sebastian Devlin-Foltz, Jacob Krimmel, Sarah Pack and Jeffrey Thompson

No 2015-86, Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Abstract: Household income, spending, and net worth are key inputs in macroeconomic forecasting and economic research. Macro-level data sources are often used to measure household accounts, but lack important information about heterogeneity across different types of households that can be found in micro-level data sources. This paper compares aggregates computed based on one micro-level data source--the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF)--with macro-level sources of information on household accounts. We find that on most measures, aggregates computed from the SCF line up well with macro-level data sources once we construct comparable series. Our results imply that researchers and policy makers can be confident in making macroeconomic inferences from household-level surveys like the SCF.

Keywords: Income; Spending; Survey of Consumer Finances; Wealth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2015-06-25
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2015.086 http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2015.086 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2015-86

DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2015.086

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