We examine the dynamics of wealth accumulation distribution in Italy using data drawn from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth, a representative survey of the Italian population conducted by the Bank of Italy. We compare survey data with national accounts data and discuss sample representativeness, attrition, and measurement issues. We then look at wealth inequality (the cross-sectional d...

With new nationwide longitudinal survey data now available from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we study the level, distribution, and composition of household wealth in contemporary China. We find that the wealth Gini coefficient of China was 0.73 in 2012. The richest 1 percent owned more than one-third of the total national household wealth, while the poorest 25 percent owned less than ...

Inequality in family wealth is high, yet we know little about how much and how wealth inequality is maintained across generations. We argue that a long-term perspective reflective of wealth’s cumulative nature is crucial to understand the extent and channels of wealth reproduction across generations. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics that span nearly half a century, we show tha...

Differential unit non-response in household wealth surveys biases estimates of top tail wealth shares downward. Using Monte Carlo evidence, I show that adding only a few extreme observations to wealth surveys is sufficient to remove the downward bias. Combining extreme wealth observations from Forbes World’s billionaires with the Survey of Consumer Finances, the Wealth and Assets survey and the...

This article studies the optimal use of fines and imprisonment when an offender’s level of wealth cannot be observed by the enforcement authority. I employ a model in which there are two types of offenders — a low-wealth type and a high-wealth type. The consequence of the unobservability of wealth depends on whether the enforcement authority would employ fines alone, or would also impose impris...