Are Survey Data Underestimating the Inequality of Net Wealth?

• Activity Number: 395 - Connecting Parallel Universes
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Tairi Room* and Jaanika Merikull
• Companies: Bank of Estonia and Bank of Estonia
• Keywords: unit non-response; item non-response; wealth survey; income survey; wealth distribution; Household Finance and Consumption Survey

Abstract

This paper uses administrative data from registers and survey data from interviews to analyse unit and item non-response in a wealth survey. The Estonian Household Finance and Consumption Survey is used, which has a unique feature that the survey data are complemented by information from administrative sources for all the persons sampled. The results show that unit non-response pattern is quite different for income and wealth, the non-response is decreasing with income and increasing with wealth. The unit and item non-response are negatively but not strongly correlated for wealth components. This implies that the underestimation of wealth inequality due to unit non-response is somewhat offset by the overestimation of wealth inequality due to item non-response. Our findings suggest that unit and item non-response have only minor role on the estimation of inequality in surveys.