How Invisible Capital Gains Drive Extreme Wealth Concentration: Evidence from Balance-Sheet-Complete Haig-Simons Accounting
Year: 2024
Type: report
Abstract: Researchers of income, wealth and inequality have long called for data on total “Haig-Simons” income, which includes accrued capital gains. We integrate NIPA income and saving measures with Integrated Macroeconomic Accounts (IMAs) data to derive an open-access, balance-sheet-complete data set of 1960-2023 “Total U.S. Haig-Simons Household Income Accounts” (THIAs) for U.S. households, with distributional estimates covering 2000-2023. We highlight five trends in this data that all contribute to the increased U.S. wealth concentration since the late 1970s. For instance, 86% of Haig-Simons saving since 2000 accrued to the top 20% of households (by income), driven heavily by asset-price increases, plus top households’ lower and declining propensities to consume.
Authors: Roth, Steve, Bezemer, Dirk
Institution: University of Groningen
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7010350346