The Distribution Of Household Wealth

Today's leading economists weigh in with a new "dashboard" of metrics for measuring our economic and social health "What we measure affects what we do. If we focus only on material well-being—on, say, the production of goods, rather than on health, education, and the environment—we become distorted in the same way that these measures are distorted." —Joseph E. Stiglitz A consensus has emerged among key experts that our conventional economic measures are out of sync with how most people live their lives. GDP, they argue, is a poor and outmoded measure of our well-being. The global movement to move beyond GDP has attracted some of the world's leading economists, statisticians, and social thinkers who have worked collectively to articulate new approaches to measuring economic well-being and social progress. In the decade since the 2008 economic crisis, these experts have come together to determine what indicators can actually tell us about people's lives. In the first book of its kind, leading economists from around the world, including Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Elizabeth Beasely, Jacob Hacker, François Bourguignon, Nora Lustig, Alan B. Krueger, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, describe a range of fascinating metrics—from economic insecurity and environmental sustainability to inequality of opportunity and levels of trust and resilience—that can be used to supplement the simplistic measure of gross domestic product, providing a far more nuanced and accurate account of societal health and well-being. This groundbreaking volume is sure to provide a major source of ideas and inspiration for one of the most important intellectual movements of our time.

This report provides evidence of a fairly generalised increase in income inequality over the past two decades across OECD countries, but the timing, intensity and causes of the increase differ from what is typically suggested in the media.

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Examining six major industrial countries, this volume presents the most recent research on current conditions and trends in household wealth inequality.

Editor Wolff is a leading authority on income, wealth, and inequality in the US, and contributing authors are well-respected experts in their field. Overall, the research is high quality, and most papers include a substantial list of references. A plethora of data is considered, and much statistical evidence is presented. . . . A useful contribution to the literature on income distribution and wealth inequality. Recommended. E. Kacapyr, Choice The contributors to this comprehensive book compile and analyse the latest data available on household wealth using, as case studies, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Finland during the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. The authors show that in the US, trends are highlighted in terms of wealth holdings, among the low-income population, along with changes in wealth polarization, racial differences in wealth holdings, and the dynamics of portfolio choices. The consensus between the authors is that wealth inequality has generally risen among these OECD countries since the early 1980s, although Germany stands out as an exception. In the case of the US, it is also noted that wealth holdings have generally failed to improve among low-income families and that the racial wealth gap widened during the late 1980s. International Perspectives on Household Wealth also contains new results on a number of topics, including measures and changes of wealth polarization in the US, measurement and changes of portfolio span in the US, asset holdings of low-income households in the US, and the effects of parental resources on asset holdings in Chile. Academic, government, and public policy economists in OECD countries, as well as those in so-called middle-income countries around the world, will find much to engage them within this book. It will also appeal to academics and researchers of international and welfare economics and other social scientists interested in the issue of inequality.