Capital Gains and Wealth Distribution in Italy

Cannnari Luigi, Giovanni D'Alessio and Romina Gambacorta

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper analyses the impact of capital gains on the level and distribution of wealth held by Italian households between 1989 and 2005. The evaluation of these issues is achieved using both macro and micro data in order to obtain a more robust result. The estimation of capital gains through macro data is obtained using national accounts data while micro data from the Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth are used to reconstruct capital gains accounting for price variations in the single assets composing wealth and for households’ idiosyncratic characteristics. Capital gains, defined as in the national accounts, explain about 40 per cent of the growth in real per capita wealth observed over the whole period, and about one-third of the growth in wealth concentration. Using capital gains reconstruction we estimate that households’ inter-temporal mobility between wealth classes is significantly affected by capital gains, to which 20 per cent of the observed transitions can be ascribed. Furthermore, capital gains take second place among the determinants of wealth variations at the household level, behind savings but ahead of intergenerational transfers.

Keywords: keywords: Households; Wealth; Saving; Capital gains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 E31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Household Wealth in Italy (Banca d’Italia) (2008): pp. 293-316

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15108/1/MPRA_paper_15108.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Capital gains and wealth distribution in Italy (2007)
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:pra:mprapa:15108

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().