ON THE WEALTH DYNAMICS OF SWEDISH FAMILIES, 1984-98

This paper focuses on three issues. First, it analyzes the increasing inequality of wealth in Sweden in terms of percentile age and birth cohort differences, and finds very weak evidence of life-cycle savings. There are rather strong birth cohort differences in wealth accumulation. Second, it is shown that bequests and inter vivo gifts contribute to the age and cohort differences in wealth, but do not increase the inequality of wealth. The third theme is mobility of wealth as a function of bequests, age, period, length of the transition period, and the magnitude of quantile differences. Copyright 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.