Luis Bauluz es investigador postdoctoral en la Universidad de Bonn, investigador visitante en la Universidad de Berkeley y Coordinador de las series de riqueza agregada en la World Inequality Database (WID.world). Tiene un PhD en Economía por la Paris School of Economics y ha sido investigador en el Banco Central de México, la London School of Economics (Reino Unido), la IESE Business School (España) y la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Ha dictado cursos de grado y posgrado en la Universidad de Bonn, en Barcelona School of Economics (BGSE) y el Instituto de Estudios Políticos de París (Sciences Po). Sus investigaciones se centran en temas de historia económica, finanzas y desigualdad y sus trabajados han sido publicados en revistas académicas como The Economic Journal, entre otras.

Abstract: This paper studies the wealth accumulation of different cohorts in the U.S. and France since 1950 and 1970, respectively. We provide a set of new stylized facts that shows a stark divergence between the wealth holdings of old and young adults since the 1980s, most strongly in the U.S. Using microdata for the U.S., we explore the reasons for this divergence by decomposing wealth accumulation into three components: saving, capital gains, and inheritances. While saving was the single most important component of wealth accumulation for cohorts born at the beginning of the 20th century, capital gains have started to play a much more prominent role for more recent generations. Our findings indicate that positive capital gains in recent decades are the main driver of the rising wealth differences between young and old adults. We also document stark changes in the life-cycle saving profile of old and new cohorts. Out of their lifetime incomes, different cohorts saved approximately the same, but older cohorts saved less at middle ages and more when old.

Autores: Luis Bauluz (Universidad de Bonn) y Timothy Meyer (Bonn Graduate School of Economics)

Organizan: Departamento de Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Revista Económica

Contacto: iie@econo.unlp.edu.ar