The Household Wealth Distribution In Spain: The Role Of Housing And Financial Wealth

The authors analyze the distribution of household wealth in Spain using the first wave of the Spanish Survey of Household Finances, conducted by the Bank of Spain in 2002. They find that wealth is more unequally distributed than income, while housing wealth is much more evenly distributed than financial wealth. Moreover, they identify two groups of wealth components: one disequalizing group, which includes financial wealth, whose value and portfolio share increase with household wealth; and a second more equalizing one, including housing wealth, whose value increases with wealth, but their share in the portfolio does not. Finally, they show that differences between age groups do not explain why wealth is much more unequally distributed than income.