Work

Disparities in Wealth Accumulation and Loss from the Great Recession and Beyond

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: Using over two decades of Survey of Consumer Finances data and a pseudo-panel technique, we measure the impact of the Great Recession on US family wealth relative to the counterfactual of what wealth would have been given wealth accumulation trajectories. Our synthetic cohort-level models find that the Great Recession reduced average family wealth by 28.5 percent-nearly double the magnitude of previous pre-post mean descriptive estimates and double the magnitude of any previous recession since the 1980s. The housing market was only part of the story; all major wealth components fell as a result of the Great Recession.

Source: American Economic Review

DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.240

Authors: Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, Eugene Steuerle, Sisi Zhang

Institutions: Urban Institute, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Language: English

Topic: Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis

Subfield: Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Reduced inequalities, No poverty

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2084988691