Using detailed tax data from the Swiss canton of Bern, I examine how changes in wealth are related to income risk. I find that only among elderly individuals high kurtosis of income risk may be positively correlated with wealth accumulation. Additionally, I document that a substantial share of...

The recently published Household Finance and Consumption Survey has revealed large differences in wealth inequality between the countries of the Euro area. We find a strong negative correlation between wealth inequality and homeownership rates across countries. We use two decomposition methods...

Recent books by Thomas Piketty (Piketty, 2014) and Anthony Atkinson (Atkinson, 2015) have brought the annual wealth tax back on the policy agenda. Both authors suggest using the annual wealth tax to supplement the redistributional effects of the income tax, assigning it a role as a...

This paper introduces a new long-run dataset based on archival data from historical waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances. The household-level data allow us to study the joint distributions of household income and wealth since 1949. We expose the central importance of portfolio composition...

In recent decades economists have turned their attention to data that asks people how happy or satisfied they are with their lives. Much of the early research concluded that the role of income in determining well-being was limited, and that only income relative to others was related to...

This paper provides a critical overview of the state of the art in the economics literature on structural reforms. It takes stock of theoretical developments, measurement efforts and of the econometric evidence. We start with a simple theoretical framework for the relationship between structural...

We discuss the effect of formal political institutions (electoral systems, fiscal decentralization, presidential and parliamentary regimes) on the extent and direction of income (re-)distribution. Empirical evidence is presented for a large sample of 70 economies and a panel of 13 OECD countries...

The “Easterlin paradox” suggests that there is no link between a society’s economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear...

When other economic measurements are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now well accepted measures for cumulative and current net nutrition. However, as the ratio of weight to height, BMI is the ratio of current to cumulative net nutrition, therefore, does not fully...

Current trends in the distribution of wealth trigger a social divide and threaten democracy. I propose to counter this evolution by enhancing the role of public capital as a redistribution and empowerment device. The governance of public capital requires two novel institutions: a socially...