Disparities in wealth accumulation and loss from the Great Recession and beyond
Open accessAbstract
Using over two decades of Survey of Consumer Finances data and a pseudo-panel technique, we measure the impact of the Great Recession on US family wealth relative to the counterfactual of what wealth would have been given wealth accumulation trajectories. Our synthetic cohort-level models find that the Great Recession reduced average family wealth by 28.5 percent-nearly double the magnitude of previous pre-post mean descriptive estimates and double the magnitude of any previous recession since the 1980s. The housing market was only part of the story; all major wealth components fell as a result of the Great Recession.
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Cites
Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2007 to 2010: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances
Bricker, J., Kennickell, A. B., Moore, K. B., & Sabelhaus, J. E. (2012) · Federal Reserve Bulletin · doi:10.17016/bulletin.2012.98-2 · Cited by 667 · see citing works
The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class
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Wealth Disparities Before and After the Great Recession
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Are Successive Generations Getting Wealthier, and If So, Why? Evidence from the 1990s
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Seltzer, N. (2019) · Demography · doi:10.1007/s13524-019-00790-6 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
“2015; Rugh 2015), wealth loss (McKernan et al. 2014; Pfeffer et al. 2016), and job loss (Holder 2017, 2018: chapter 3; Hout and Cumberworth 2012).”
- Authors
- McKernan, S.-M., Ratcliffe, C., Steuerle, E., & Zhang, S.
- Affiliations
- Urban Institute (US)
- Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (CN)
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2014-05-01
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 240-244
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2084988691
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 15.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.aeaweb.org
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Housing Market and Economics
- Keywords
- Great Recession, family wealth, wealth accumulation, wealth loss, wealth inequality, housing market
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