Household saving and portfolio change: evidence from the 1983-89 SCF panel

There are very few sources of high-quality data on the dynamics of wealth accumulation. This paper uses newly-available data from the 1983-89 panel of the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine household saving and portfolio change over the 1980s. The 1983 SCF collected detailed information on households' assets, liabilities, income and other characteristics for a sample of 4,103 families. In 1989, 1,479 of these families were re-interviewed using a similar questionnaire. After describing the sample and methodology of the panel survey, we analyze changes in household wealth over the 1983-89 period. We also investigate changes in the structure of households' assets and liabilities.Saving and investment