Tag Archives: Income inequality

In a Staff Working Paper, the Bank of England’s Philip Bunn, Alice Pugh, and Chris Yeates discuss how monetary policy easing following the financial crisis affected income and wealth of different age groups. The authors analyze survey panel data (ONS Wealth and Assets Survey) on households’ characteristics and balance sheet positions. They argue that the overall effect of monetary policy on standard relative measures of income and wealth inequality has been small. Given the pre-existing...

… meanwhile, inequality in the US remains more of an issue. On Alphaville, Kadhim Shubber summarizes a DB Global Markets Research study on US inequality: More than 30% of US households have zero or negative non-home wealth. Wealth is increasingly concentrated among the old, and among the wealthy. Observers paint the picture of an increasingly dysfunctional society. And they point to the relevance of inequality for political polarization and accountability.

In a paper, Reto Föllmi and Isabel Martínez document trends in income and wealth inequality in Switzerland over the last 100 years. Daniel Hug reports in the NZZaS (figures below taken from NZZaS). Data (World Wealth and Income Database, based on tax records). Some findings: Income inequality has been rather stable and is modest … … although social mobility as reflected in educational attainment is low. Income inequality at the very top has increased. The top 1% of income recipients earn...

That’s what Gerald Auten and David Splinter argue in a paper from last year. … new estimates of top income shares using two consistent measures of income. Our measure of consistent market income includes full corporate profits and adjusts for changes from TRA86, including changes to the tax base and increased filing by dependent filers. In addition, we include employer paid payroll taxes and health insurance and adjust for falling marriage rates. The effect of these adjustments on...

The World Wealth and Income Database.

On VoxEU, Gianni La Cava summarizes his research on the secular rise in the housing share of US income. In the US national accounts, income accruing to the housing sector is measured as ‘net housing capital income’, or simply, net rental income (i.e. gross rents less housing costs, such as depreciation and property taxes). This measure includes rental income going to both owner-occupiers (imputed rent) and landlords (market rent). The very detailed nature of the Bureau of Economic...