Women, Wealth and Mobility / Lena Edlund, Wojciech Kopczuk.

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Edlund, Lena

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TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w13162.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2007.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: The extent of and changes in inter-generational mobility of wealth are central to understanding dynamics of wealth inequality but hard to measure. Using estate tax returns data, we observe that the share of women among the very wealthy (top 0.01%) in the United States peaked in the late 1960s, reaching almost 50%. Three decades on, women's share had declined to one third, a return to pre-war levels. We argue that this pattern mirrors the relative importance of inherited vs. self-made wealth in the economy and thus the gender-composition of the wealthiest may serve as a proxy for inter-generational wealth mobility. This proxy for "dynastic wealth'' suggests that wealth mobility in the past century decreased until the 1970s and rose thereafter, a pattern consistent with technological change driving long term trends in income inequality and mobility. Greater wealth mobility in recent decades is also consistent with the simultaneous rise in top income shares and relatively stable wealth concentration.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w13162 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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Previous	nber w1316 A Reconsideration of the Effects of Unionism on Relative Wages and Employment in the United States, 1920-80 /	nber w13160 Estate Taxation, Entrepreneurship, and Wealth /	nber w13161 Spatial Mismatch or Racial Mismatch? /	nber w13162 Women, Wealth and Mobility /	nber w13163 Choosing Agents and Monitoring Consumption: A Note on Wealth as a Corruption-Controlling Device /	nber w13164 Why Doesn't Capitalism Flow to Poor Countries? /	nber w13165 Predictable Returns and Asset Allocation: Should a Skeptical Investor Time the Market? /	Next

June 2007.

The extent of and changes in inter-generational mobility of wealth are central to understanding dynamics of wealth inequality but hard to measure. Using estate tax returns data, we observe that the share of women among the very wealthy (top 0.01%) in the United States peaked in the late 1960s, reaching almost 50%. Three decades on, women's share had declined to one third, a return to pre-war levels. We argue that this pattern mirrors the relative importance of inherited vs. self-made wealth in the economy and thus the gender-composition of the wealthiest may serve as a proxy for inter-generational wealth mobility. This proxy for "dynastic wealth'' suggests that wealth mobility in the past century decreased until the 1970s and rose thereafter, a pattern consistent with technological change driving long term trends in income inequality and mobility. Greater wealth mobility in recent decades is also consistent with the simultaneous rise in top income shares and relatively stable wealth concentration.