Using a wide variety of business cycle dating and filtering techniques, this paper documents the cyclical behavior of the post-tax income distribution in the US. First, all incomes are cyclical and co-move with the business cycle. Second, lower and higher income individuals experience...

Much analysis in macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind consumer/investment choices by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. Heterogeneity at the micro level can jeopardize attempts to back up the representative consumer...

We use a repeated incentivized risk experiment in rural Thailand to test determinants of changes in the level of individual risk aversion over time. We find that risk aversion significantly changes between 2008 and 2013 as a result of macro- andmicro-level shocks. Strong macroeconomic recovery...

We analyze the top tail of the wealth distribution in Germany, France, Spain, and Greece based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Since top wealth is likely to be underrepresented in household surveys we integrate the big fortunes from rich lists, estimate a Pareto...

This paper deals with the question of selectivity of missing data on income questions in large panel surveys due to item-non-response and with imputation as one alternative strategy to cope with this issue. In contrast to cross-section surveys, the imputation of missing values in panel data can...

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere considerably with the...

To measure income inequality with right censored (topcoded) data, we propose multiple imputation for censored observations using draws from Generalized Beta of the Second Kind distributions to provide partially synthetic datasets analyzed using complete data methods. Estimation and inference...

We analyze the top tail of the wealth distribution in Germany, France, and Spain based on the first and second wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Since top wealth is likely to be underrepresented in household surveys, we integrate big fortunes from rich lists, estimate...

This paper delivers new insights into the development of income inequality and regional stratification in Germany after unification using a new method for detecting social stratification by a decomposition of the GINI index which yields the obligatory between- and withingroup components as well...

Using a micro-level approach to poverty traps, this paper explores welfare dynamics among households in post-war rural Mozambique. Conceptually, the paper builds on an asset-based approach to poverty and tests empirically, with household panel data, for the existence of a poverty trap. Findings...