We study beliefs about wealth inequality and preferences for wealth redistribution. For this, we conduct a large-scale online survey in Germany. First, we analyze how well participants are informed about the German wealth distribution and their position in it. Second, we investigate how...

The purpose of this work is to examine the nature of the historically observed and empirically described by the Pareto law inequality in the distribution of wealth and income in an economic system. This inequality is presumed to be the result of unequal opportunity by its members. An analytical...

An individual’s inequality aversion (IA) is a central preference parameter that captures the welfare sacrifice from exposure to inequality. However, it is far from trivial how to best elicit IA estimates. Also, little is known about the behavioural determinants of IA and how they differ across...

This paper estimates rates of return on wealth across gross wealth groups by matching individual-level survey data with macroeconomic return data for Germany. Using machine learning for more detailed financial asset categories, we find that the average nominal rate of return on gross assets for...

This paper investigates the long-run nexus between wealth inequality and aggregate output using a DSGE model in which wealth inequality endogenously affects individual entrepreneurship incentives, thereby influencing aggregate output. Our model passes the indirect inference test against the UK...

We provide evidence for a new propagation mechanism of wealth inequality and mobility. Using unique administrative data and a quasi-field experiment of exogenous assignment, we find that educated entrants, faced with greater local wealth inequality and salient cases of wealth mobility, take...