Date of Award

1-1-2016

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Economics

Content Description

1 online resource (iii, 182 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

John Bailey Jones

Committee Members

Adrian Masters, Yue Li

Keywords

Housing Return Risk, Intergenerational Wealth Elasticity, Life-cycle Wealth Dynamics, Wealth Distribution, Wealth Inequality, Income, Wealth

Subject Categories

Economics

Abstract

I investigate and model wealth distribution determinants both empirically and theoretically. In "An Investigation of the Process for U.S. Household Wealth", I use panel-structured Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data to investigate the stochastic process for U.S. household wealth, based on a model that includes a common age-dependent component, a permanent heterogeneous component, and a dynamic component. Using the estimated wealth process, I decompose the dispersion in household wealth at each age generated between the different stochastic mechanisms. The estimated household wealth process can then be used to validate theoretical models of wealth inequality. The experiment conducted in this study shows that a familiar theoretical model that can successfully replicate the overall cross-sectional household wealth distribution is not able to fully match the empirical dynamics of wealth.

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