We use the Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth, a rather unique dataset with a long time dimension of panel … information on consumption, income and wealth, to structurally estimate a buffer-stock saving model. We exploit the information … contained in the joint dynamics of income, consumption and wealth to quantify the degree of insurance against income risk. The …

English couple households born in the 1940s. Here, 'optimal' wealth holdings are those that allow households to enjoy the same … calculate this level of wealth, and compare that with how much wealth households are observed to hold. We find that the majority … of households hold more wealth than our model suggests is optimal and that this would still be true even if housing …