We outline a procedure for combining six cross-sections of the German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure, and discuss potential pitfalls of such a venture. Particularly, we investigate the consequences of a major break in the survey design for inter-temporal comparisons of expenditure...

We study the role of household saving behaviour, of individual motives for saving and that of perceived liquidity constraints in 15 Euro Area countries. The empirical analysis is based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, a new harmonized data set collecting detailed information on...

We estimate the "unhedged interest rate exposure" (URE) of euro area households. The URE is a welfare metric that captures the extent to which households are exposed to changes in real interest rates, and reflects the direct gains and losses in interest income flows incurred by households after...

Whether couples pool their resources and behave like a unit or spend their income individually is crucial for social and tax policy. In this paper, I provide a test of the income pooling hypothesis using administrative cross-sectional survey data on expenditures and individual incomes of couple...

We study the contribution of migrants to the rise in UK top incomes. Using administrative data on the universe of UK taxpayers, we show migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.01% as anywhere in the bottom 97%. These high...