Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/174477 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers No. 2018-02
Publisher: 
Banco de México, Ciudad de México
Abstract: 
Using data of households approaching retirement in the U.S., I find that the Whites' median saving rates are 9 percentage points larger than the Mexican Americans' rates (ethnic gap) and than the African Americans' rates (racial gap). Two-thirds of each gap correspond to changes in asset prices and a third to households' active decisions. Quantile decompositions show that differences in income and education explain most of the active saving gaps. This implies that wealth inequality is not attributable to differences in the distributions of active saving rates conditional on socio-economic characteristics. When retirement assets are included, the racial but not the ethnic gap in total savings disappears. The results suggest that reducing disparities in income, education and pension savings would help to reduce wealth inequality.
Subjects: 
African Americans
Mexican Americans
saving rates
wealth inequality
JEL: 
D14
D31
E21
G11
J15
Document Type: 
Working Paper
Appears in Collections:

Files in This Item:
File
Size
2.23 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.