Was Pareto right? Is the distribution of wealth thick-tailed?
Wildauer, Rafael ORCID: 0000-0001-6395-6286, Heck, Ines and Kapeller, Jakob
(2023)
Was Pareto right? Is the distribution of wealth thick-tailed?
[Working Paper]
|
PDF (Published working paper)
38597_WILDAUER_Was_Pareto_right_Is_the_distribution_of wealth_thick_tailed.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
We fit log-normal, exponential, Pareto type I and Pareto type II distributions to US wealth data from 1989 to 2019 and examine the goodness of fit. Unlike earlier literature this paper uses high quality data, covering the entire US population, yielding powerful and unbiased tests. Beyond the 91st percentile the type II distribution consistently provides the best fit to the data and supports the hypothesis of a thick-tailed wealth (and by extension income) distribution. In addition, our results highlight the changing shape of the tail with decreasing concentration up to the 98th percentile and increasing concentration beyond. Our results suggest that practitioners modelling the distribution of wealth in situations where only limited data is available, a type I Pareto distribution might still serve as a valuable bias correction tool but should only be fitted to the top 1% of the population.
Item Type: | Working Paper |
---|---|
Uncontrolled Keywords: | D31 personal income; wealth; and their distributions; C46 specific distributions; C81 data estimation methodology |
Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: | Faculty of Business Faculty of Business > Department of Accounting & Finance Faculty of Business > Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (IPEGFA) Faculty of Business > Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (IPEGFA) > Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre (GPERC) |
Last Modified: | 21 Feb 2023 10:07 |
URI: | http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/38597 |
Actions (login required)
![]() |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year