Looking for the missing rich: tracing the top tail of the wealth distribution
- We analyse the top tail of the wealth distribution in France, Germany, and Spain using the first and second waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Since top wealth is likely to be under-represented in household surveys, we integrate big fortunes from rich lists, estimate a Pareto distribution, and impute the missing rich. In addition to the Forbes list, we rely on national rich lists since they represent a broader base of the big fortunes in those countries. As a result, the top 1% wealth share increases notably for the three selected countries after imputing the top wealth. We find that national rich lists can improve the estimation of the Pareto coefficient in particular when the list of national USD billionaires is short.
| Author details: | Stefan BachGND, Andreas ThiemannORCiDGND, Aline ZuccoGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10797-019-09578-1 |
| ISSN: | 0927-5940 |
| ISSN: | 1573-6970 |
| Title of parent work (English): | International Tax and Public Finance |
| Publisher: | Springer |
| Place of publishing: | Dordrecht |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2019/11/08 |
| Publication year: | 2019 |
| Release date: | 2020/10/06 |
| Tag: | HFCS; Missing rich; Pareto distribution; Wealth distribution |
| Volume: | 26 |
| Issue: | 6 |
| Number of pages: | 25 |
| First page: | 1234 |
| Last Page: | 1258 |
| Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften |
| DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 32 Politikwissenschaft / 320 Politikwissenschaft |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Publishing method: | Open Access |
| Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
