Household wealth data and public policy

Good quality, detailed microdata on household wealth is increasingly available and is of central importance in policymaking. This conference sought to highlight recent research using household wealth data and to serve as a forum for the discussion of directions in the collection of such data, the measurement of wealth and its use in the policymaking process in the UK and abroad. Discussion took place regarding the future of the measurement of household wealth in the UK including the Wealth and Assets Survey. 

The conference involved considerations of the link between household wealth and both long-run and short-run policy questions. Longer run issues include patterns of wealth inequality, mechanisms generating such inequality, the role of inheritances, life-cycle saving and retirement preparedness, taxation and other policy responses. Issues of concern in the short-run are household balance sheets, household financial vulnerability and fragility and the use of wealth data to inform monetary policy and fiscal stability policy. 

The conference was jointly organised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Public Economics UK with funding from the Nuffield Foundation, the Bank of England and the ESRC.

Conference speakers:

Sir Anthony Atkinson FBA CBE, Nuffield College Oxford

James Banks, IFS and University of Manchester

Olympia Bover, Bank of Spain (The distribution of debt across EU countries: the role of individual characteristics, institutions and credit conditions)

Philip Bunn, Bank of England (How reliable are household surveys?)

Mariacristina De Nardi, UCL, IFS and Federal Reserve (Models of wealth inequality, an overview)

John Hills, Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE

Andrew Hood, IFS (A tale of three distributions: inheritances, wealth and lifetime income)

Eric French, UCL and IFS

Joe Grice, Office for National Statistics

Guy Goodwin, Office for National Statistics

Eleni Karagiannaki, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE (Recent trends in the size and the distribution of inherited wealth in the UK)

Kevin B. Moore, Federal Reserve (Changes in the distribution of after-tax wealth: has income tax policy increased wealth inequality?)

Cormac O’Dea, Institute for Fiscal Studies (Cash and pensions: have English households saved optimally for retirement?)

David Pacini, University of Bristol

Victor Rios-Rull, University of Minnesota (Household Wealth Data and Public Policy: Some thoughts from Macroeconomics)

Mark Robson, Bank of England 

May Rostom, Bank of England (Household debt and consumption in the UK)

John Sabelhaus, Federal Reserve and University of Maryland (Heterogeneity in economic shocks and household spending)

Jiri Slacalek, European Central Bank (The distribution of wealth and the marginal propensity to consume)

Philip Vermeluen, European Central Bank (How fat is the top tail of the wealth distribution?)

Gabriel Zucman, LSE (Wealth inequality in the United States since 1913)