A Safe Harbor: Wealth-Income Ratios in Switzerland over the 20th Century and the Role of Housing Prices
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Abstract
We estimate the ratio of private wealth to national income, βpt, for Switzerland over the period 1900–2018. Our results indicate that the development of βpt in Switzerland did not follow a U-shaped pattern as in most European countries, but that the evolution was extraordinarily stable, with βpt oscillating around 500% over most of the 20th century. How- ever, the wealth-income ratio has been on the rise since the turn of the century to reach 721% in 2017—an unprecedented level in the past. This considerable increase is mainly driven by large capital gains in housing wealth since 2010. We present new cross-country evidence that capital gains in housing wealth have become an important driver of rising wealth-income ratios in a series of developed economies.
Language
English
Keywords
wealth-income ratio
income distribution
economic growth
housing prices
Event Title
20th Journees Louis-Andre Gerard-Varet
Event Location
Marseille
Event Date
June 22-24, 2021
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Contact Email Address
enea.baselgia@unisg.ch
Eprints ID
263993
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
open.access
Name
Pres-WIR_HousingPrices.pdf
Size
1.98 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b473e97146df1dff803a3f3c3fffbef6