2134/36527
Fran Azpitarte
Fran
Azpitarte
The household wealth distribution in Spain: The role of housing and financial wealth
Loughborough University
2019
Wealth
Income
Distribution
Inequality decomposition
Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified
Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified
2019-01-10 09:55:16
Journal contribution
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/The_household_wealth_distribution_in_Spain_The_role_of_housing_and_financial_wealth/9477062
We analyse the distribution of household wealth in Spain using the first wave of the Spanish Survey of Household Finances, conducted by the Bank of Spain in 2002. We study the distribution of the different wealth components and, using inequality decomposition techniques, we assess the contribution of each element to overall wealth inequality. We find that wealth is more unequally distributed than income, while housing wealth is much more evenly distributed than financial wealth. Moreover, we identify two groups of wealth components: one disequalizing group, which includes financial wealth, whose value and portfolio share increase with household wealth; and a second more equalizing one, including housing wealth, whose value increases with wealth, but their share in the portfolio does not. Finally, we show that differences between age groups do not explain why wealth is much more unequally distributed than income. Instead, business and home ownership are factors that clearly contribute to explain this feature. © 2010, Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.