This paper uses administrative tax data to estimate top wealth in the United States. We assemble new data that links people to their sources of capital income and develop new methods to estimate the degree of return heterogeneity within asset classes. Disaggregated fixed income data reveal that...

Two hallmarks of U.S. monetary policy since the 1981-1982 recession have been declining interest rates and moderation in inflation. Coincident with these trends has been a surge in U.S. wealth inequality, with the Gini coefficient up by 0.070 between 1983 and 2019. This paper analyzes the...

Theoretically, wealthier people should buy less insurance, and should self-insure through saving instead, as insurance entails monitoring costs. Here, we use administrative data for 63,000 individuals and, contrary to theory, find that the wealthier have better life and property insurance...

Entitlement programs have become an increasing component of total government spending in the US over the last six decades. To some observers, this growth of the welfare state is excessive and unwarranted. To others, it is a welcome counter-acting force to the rapid increase in income inequality....

Population aging has been linked to a global savings glut and a decline in safe real interest rates. Conversely, risky real returns have not fallen as much, if at all, with equity risk premia on the rise. An existing literature can explain changes in safe rates using demographics. We go further...

The distributions of wealth in the US and many other countries are strikingly concentrated on the top and skewed to the right. To explain the income and wealth inequality, we provide a tractable heterogeneous-agent model with incomplete markets in continuous time. We separate illiquid capital...