Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/264815 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 223
Publisher: 
Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB), Vienna
Abstract: 
Piketty (2017) argues in favor of a multidimensional and relational approach to the analysis of wealth inequality. Specifically, he suggests that social classes should be analyzed in terms of the power and production relations between social groups, not just the percentiles in statistical distributions into which various groups fall. We propose such a relational approach by focusing on different functions of wealth. We operationalize functions of wealth by empirically analyzing the groups of renters, owners, and capitalists. Employing recent European and US data, we find that classifying households based on these decisive functions of wealth aligns well with the wealth distribution, in ways that vary considerably across countries. We discuss many potential advantages of this class typology in measuring and analyzing wealth and wealth inequality in particular.
Subjects: 
wealth
inequality
households
survey data
class
economic strati cation
JEL: 
D14
D15
D31
D63
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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