Measuring Wealth: Income Capitalization with Heterogeneous Rates of Return

Bozbay I., Halvorsen E., Iacono R., and Vesperoni A.

In many countries, the income distribution is well-understood from tax data while the wealth distribution is unknown and typically proxied by surveys. This paper develops a method to estimate the unknown wealth distribution from the observed income distribution. Our approach is an extension of the well-known income capitalization method that, using the same data input, delivers a richer estimation by introducing theoretical structure. Specifically, in contrast to the income capitalization method and in line with empirical evidence, our method takes into account and estimates the heterogeneous rates of return by assuming asset complementarities in the household production functions, so that higher investments may breed higher returns via portfolio composition. In an empirical application, the proposed method is tested with Norwegian data where both income and wealth are observed at the household level, verifying that the predicted wealth levels are a better proxy for the observed ones compared to the original income capitalization method.

Slides available here

(Mis-)Perceptions, Information, and
Political Polarization

Iacono R. and Marino M. and Mollerstrom J.

R&R European Journal of Political Economy 

Paper, May, 2023

Dual Income Taxation and Top Income Shares

Ceraolo M., Iacono R., and Rios-Avila F.

Slides available upon request

Revisiting ‘Workfare versus Welfare’: micro-level evidence on the trade-off between labour market activation and welfare generosity

Iacono R. and Smedsvik B.

Draft available upon request

 

Work-in-progress (additional projects)

Mortality and wealth: evidence from Norway (with Yonatan Berman)

The effect of a reform of the LTV on mortgages and fertility (with Roberto Nisticò and Tommaso Oliviero)

Unintended Consequences of Externally Aided Projects on Fiscal Transfers: a sub-national study of India (with Krishna C Vadlamannati)

Mobility of factors (with Marco Ranaldi and Elisa Palagi)