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American Economic Review: Vol. 99 No. 1 (March 2009)

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Women, Wealth, and Mobility

Article Citation

Edlund, Lena, and Wojciech Kopczuk. 2009. "Women, Wealth, and Mobility." American Economic Review, 99(1): 146-78.

DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.1.146

Abstract

Using estate tax returns data, we observe that the share of women among the very wealthy in the United States peaked in the late 1960s at nearly one-half and then declined to one-third. We argue that this pattern reflects changes in the importance of dynastic wealth, with the share of women proxying for inherited wealth. If so, wealth mobility decreased until the 1970s and rose thereafter. Such an interpretation is consistent with technological change driving longterm trends in mobility and inequality, as well as the recent divergence between top wealth and top income shares documented elsewhere. (JEL D31, J16, J62, O33)

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Authors

Edlund, Lena (Columbia U)
Kopczuk, Wojciech (Columbia U)

JEL Classifications

D31: Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
J16: Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J62: Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
O33: Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes


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