OECD Guidelines for Micro Statistics on Household Wealth OECD BETTER POLICIES FOR BETTER LIVES
Table of contents Foreword 7 Preface 9 Acknowledgments 11 Executive summary 13 Chapter 1. Introduction 17 1.1. Purpose of the standards and guidelines 18 1.2. Development of the Guidelines 19 1.3. Relationship with existing international standards 21 1.4. Structure of the report. 21 Chapter 2. Overview of household wealth statistics 25 2.1. Need for information on household wealth 26 2.2. Objectives and uses of micro statistics on household wealth 30 2.3. Integration of micro statistics on household wealth with other statistics... 33 2.4. International data collection and measurement initiatives 36 2.5. Summary 38 Chapter 3. Standard concepts, definitions and classifications for household wealth statistics : 41 3.1. Description of the conceptual framework for micro statistics on household wealth 42 3.2. Conceptual relationship between micro statistics on'household wealth, income and consumption 44 3.3. Basic concepts and definitions for household wealth statistics 46 3.4. Wealth and net worth '.' 54 3.5. Assets and liabilities 55 3.6. General principles of recording 58 3.7. Standard components of household wealth 66 3.8. Asset and liability groups 75 3.9. Household groups 78 3.10. Other variables related to wealth/net worth 88 3.11. Consistency with other international statistical standards 92 Chapter 4. Data sources and methods for producing household wealth statistics... 97 4.1. Different types of sources and methods 98 4.2. Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches 98 4.3. Combination of different sources: Purposes and methods 100 4.4. Summary 102
Chapter 5. Measurement guidelines for standard components of household wealth.. 103 5.1. Measurement units 104 5.2. Reference points and reference periods 104 5.3. Valuation basis 105 5.4. Non-financial assets 106 5.5. Financial assets 113 5.6. Liabilities 125 5.7. Summary 128 Notes.'..-..-;: 129 Chapter 6. Measuring household wealth through surveys 131 6.1. General measurement issues 132 6.2. Measurement issues specific to wealth surveys 137 6.3. Survey development and data collection 138 6.4. Summary 158 Notes 159 Chapter 7. Analytic measures 161 7.1. Life-cycle perspective and analysis by population subgroups 162 7.2. Unit of analysis 163 7.3. Specific analytic measures and their use 163 7.4. Inequality indices 170 7.5. Adjusting for price differences 174 7.6. International statistical comparisons 177 7.7. Summary 178 Notes 179 Chapter 8. Dissemination 181 8.1. Types of dissemination '. 182 8.2. Analysis 182 8.3. Specific issues concerning the dissemination of wealth data 185 8.4. Summary 189 Notes 190 Chapter 9. Quality assurance for household wealth statistics 191 9.1. Quality assurance frameworks 192 9.2. Summary '. 202 Bibliography 205 Annex A. Eurosystem household finance and consumption survey 207 Annex B. Luxembourg Wealth Study - A case for increased ex ante comparability of data sources 216 Annex C. Differences between micro and macro measures of household wealth... 225 Annex D. Inventory of country methodologies for producing micro wealth statistics... 229 Annex. Household definitions in other statistical standards 275
Tables 2.1. Examples of the use of micro data on household wealth in policy making 32 3.1. Summary of the main features of the household concepts and definitions used in other standards 48 3.2. List of standard components of household wealth 67 3.3. Relationship between household wealth standard components and household income components in the Income, Consumption and Wealth Framework 76 3.4. Household wealth by household size in Italy, 2008 80 3.5. Household wealth by household type and labour force status of household members in Australia, 2009-10... 81 3.6. Family wealth by geographic location of family in the United States, 2004 and 2007 82 3.7. Household wealth by household's tenure type in Australia, 2009-10 83 3.8. Composition of family wealth by net worth quintile in Canada, 2005 85 3.9. Household wealth by wealth and income classes in the Netherlands, 2011 85 3.10. Household wealth mobility by net wealth quintile in Italy, 2000-08 86 3.11. Household wealth by age and education of the household reference person in Canada, 1999 and 2005 86 3.12. Examples of attitudinal and behavioural questions in household wealth surveys. 93 5.1. Value of principal residence in Great Britain, by dwelling type, 2006-08 and 2008-10 109 7.1. Mean, median and mean of the median person wealth in the United States, 2007 164 7.2. The effect of equivalence scales on the levels and inequality of household wealth in the United States, 2007 170 7.3. Effect of the treatment of outliers on summary measures of wealth inequality in the United States, 2007 172 7.4. Effect of the inclusion and exclusion of households with zero and negative wealth and of top and bottom coding in the United States, 2007 172 7.5. Mean and median values of the main components of household wealth in Italy, Germany and the United States 173 7.6. Share of households by type of assets and debt in Italy, Germany and United States 174 7.7. Inequality measures and top shares by type of assets and debt in Italy, Germany and the United States 174 8.1. Family net worth by selected characteristics of families in the United States 183 A.l. Main features of country surveys participating in the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey 209 B.I. List of LWS components of the household balance sheet 217 B.2. List of LWS non-wealth variables 220 C.I. Differences between micro and macro statistics on household wealth 226 C.2. Relationship between standard components in macro and micro household wealth statistics 227 D.I. Overview 230 D.2. Data collection properties 234 D.3. Structure _ 239 D.4. Inventory 243 D.5. Main characteristics by country 244 E.I. Comparison of household concepts and definitions in other standards 275
Figures 3.1. Broad conceptual framework for micro statistics on household wealth 42 3.2. Broad conceptual framework for macro statistics on household sector wealth, based on SNA 2008 43 3.3. Overview of conceptual relationship between micro statistics on household wealth, income and consumption from a statistical perspective 45 6.1. Information cycle for a household survey 132 6.2. The role of data producers in sample surveys 133 6.3. Income and wealth distribution in_the United States, 2007 138 6.4. Income and wealth distribution in Italy, 2008 139 7.1. Distribution of net worth in the United States, 2007 165 7.2. Kernel density estimates of net worth in the United States 166 7.3. Cumulative distribution function for household wealth in the United States, 2007. 167 7.4. Lorenz curves for household wealth in the United States, 2007 168 x 7.5. Relative quantile-difference plot for the United States, 2007 173 8.1. Distribution of household net worth in Australia, 2009-10 186 Al. Contents of the HFCS 210 A2. The HFCS Blueprint questionnaire 210