(session organized by the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth)

Inequality is rising around the world and National Statistical Offices are measuring the changes in inequality using three dimensions of economic well-being - Income, Consumption and Wealth. International associations like OECD and EUROSTAT have coordinated efforts across countries to develop best practices and comparable estimates in order to evaluate differences across countries. This session is sponsored by the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, and includes experts in measuring disparities in income, consumption and wealth in and across countries. These experts will provide national and international estimates that demonstrate the changes in inequality across all three dimensions.

Panel includes four papers
Paper 1: Statistics Canada’s Sub-annual Distributions of Household Economic Accounts 
After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic Statistics Canada began developing sub-annual Distributions of Household Economic Accounts (DHEA). Leveraging the agency’s long standing Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD-M), as well as some new nowcasting efforts, survey and administrative data sources, the team was able to produce quarterly DHEAs which lagged the reference period by approximately 6 months. Statistics Canada is continually working to enhance its sub-annual DHEAs, including adding further granularity and improving differences between micro and macro data sources. This presentation will provide an overview of Statistics Canada’s sub-annual 

Paper 2: International Efforts to Measure Disparities in Income, Consumption and Wealth
The OECD and Eurostat have developed methodology and engaged in several rounds of data collection to measure disparities in line with national accounts (DNA). These estimates complement existing indicators on economic inequality by providing more comprehensive measures of inequality, by extending the analysis from income to consumption and saving, and by providing results that are fully consistent with macroeconomic aggregates. This paper presents the latest developments of the DNA work. The results show that Mexico and the United States record the highest income disparities, with Ireland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Slovenia on the other end of the spectrum. The paper also examines differences across socio-demographic characteristics of individuals and households in various quintiles.

Paper 3: What Money Can Buy: A Joint Distribution of Personal Income and Personal Consumption Expenditures
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have recently constructed a new joint distribution of personal income and personal consumption expenditures. As a prototype exercise for 2019, this is the first such joint distribution for the U.S., consistent with national accounts. By developing a new methodology to link these distributions, BEA and BLS will allow users to analyze the distributions of income and consumption expenditures for the same quantiles. Though such linkages are challenging and have limitations, this exercise presents an important step in bridging that gap for national accounts.

Paper 4: Intergenerational Mobility using Income, Consumption, and Wealth
We use fifty years of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study the intergenerational correlation in income, consumption, and wealth for the same individuals and find that income exhibits the highest intergenerational correlation, or lowest mobility, followed closely by consumption and a larger difference for wealth. Our findings highlight the importance of using the same sample to study the three measures, as our consumption rank-rank slope is higher than the income rank-rank slope found in the literature, but our consumption rank-rank slope is lower than our own income rank-rank slope. Relative mobility is lowest for income, followed by consumption and wealth. However, we find that high wealth in childhood supplements low income or low consumption in childhood, increasing upward mobility for those with low income or consumption in childhood.

Organiser: Mr David Johnson 

Chair: Andrew Sharpe 

Speaker: Marina Gindelsky 

Speaker: Ms Amanda Sinclair 

Speaker: Mr David Johnson 

Speaker: Mr Jorrit Zwijnenburg