Exploring Alternative Data Sources for Household Wealth Statistics

Arnab Bhattacharjee, Larissa Marioni, Max Mosley and Adrian Pabst

No 552, National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers from National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Abstract: This paper aims to explore and assess alternative data sources for wealth in order to improve existing pension wealth statistics. We find that, notwithstanding some limitations, the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) is currently the most comprehensive source. Then, we conduct a comparative analysis of WAS against alternative data sources, including potential new sources. Our findings suggest that, despite WAS being somewhat good at capturing variations in pension wealth across the population, it appears deficient in capturing well pension uptake for the lower three deciles. Together, pension wealth at the top end is also underreported. We recommend using alternative sources of information, such as a one-time survey and/or using a microsimulation approach to complement the available data.

Keywords: pension wealth; wealth distribution; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nsr:niesrd:552

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