The Joint Distribution of Net Worth and Pension Wealth in Germany
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The German Socio-Economic Panel study 853 2016 SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research SOEP — The German Socio-Economic Panel study at DIW Berlin 853-2016 The joint distribution of net worth and pension wealth in Germany Timm Bönke, Markus M. Grabka, Carsten Schröder, Edward N. Wolff, Lennard Zyska SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW Berlin This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German Socio- Economic Panel study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science. 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The SOEPpapers are available at http://www.diw.de/soeppapers Editors: Jan Goebel (Spatial Economics) Martin Kroh (Political Science, Survey Methodology) Carsten Schröder (Public Economics) Jürgen Schupp (Sociology) Conchita D’Ambrosio (Public Economics, DIW Research Fellow) Denis Gerstorf (Psychology, DIW Research Director) Elke Holst (Gender Studies, DIW Research Director) Frauke Kreuter (Survey Methodology, DIW Research Fellow) Frieder R. Lang (Psychology, DIW Research Fellow) Jörg-Peter Schräpler (Survey Methodology, DIW Research Fellow) Thomas Siedler (Empirical Economics) C. Katharina Spieß ( Education and Family Economics) Gert G. Wagner (Social Sciences) ISSN: 1864-6689 (online) German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) DIW Berlin Mohrenstrasse 58 10117 Berlin, Germany Contact: Uta Rahmann | [email protected] The joint distribution of net worth and pension wealth in Germany Timm Bönke,1 Markus M. Grabka,2 Carsten Schröder,1,2 Edward N. Wolff,3 and Lennard Zyska4 Abstract. Research on wealth inequality usually focuses on real and financial assets, while pension wealth – the present value of future pension entitlements from public and company pension schemes – receives little attention. This is astonishing, given that pension plans play an important role for material security and well‐being for an overwhelming part of the population and, thus, should be accounted for in peoples’ wealth portfolios. Using novel data from the Socio Economic Panel (SOEP), we show the incidence, relevance, and distribution of individual pension wealth, net worth, and augmented wealth (the sum of the two) in Germany. Further, we investigate age‐wealth‐profiles and differences between East and West Germany. JEL codes: D31, H55, J32 Keywords: net worth, pension wealth, augmented wealth, SOEP, age wealth profiles 1 Freie Universitaet Berlin, 2 SOEP at DIW Berlin, 3 New York University, 4 Katholic University Eichstaett‐Ingolstadt. Acknowledgement: Markus M. Grabka, Carsten Schröder, and Edward Wolff thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under contract GR 3239/4‐1 for financial support of our research. 1 1 Introduction In economics and neighboring disciplines, the rising inequalities in many societies is regarded as one of the most important problems and pressing matters we are facing today (OECD 2015a, Stiglitz 2012, Atkinson 2015). Thus, a broad empirical literature investigates inequalities in incomes. Empirical studies on wealth inequalities – another crucial dimension of economic inequalities – are considerably rarer. This is surprising given that wealth is a powerful indicator of the capability to participate in societal life: It reflects a household’s total material resources to secure a standard of living, permits consumption‐smoothing in presence of income volatilities, enables the inter‐generational transmission of social status, and, in general, provides financial security and income. Finally, high wealth can be used to influence political decision processes. Research on the distribution of private wealth requires high‐quality micro data. Initiatives undertaken by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Cross National Data Center in Luxembourg (LIS) are important steps in this direction. The ECB’s “Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey” (HFCS)1 provides detailed information on real and financial assets for the Euro area. Likewise, LIS’s Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS)2 contains harmonized wealth microdata from high‐ and middle‐income countries around the world. Neither of the two scientific surveys, however, collects information on entitlements in statutory and company pension schemes, at least for the non‐retired population. Such entitlements are the basis for determining pension wealth, the present value of the stream of future pensions (see OECD 2013a). Administrative microdata from statutory pension institutions, conversely, lack information on company pensions, financial and real assets.3 Reasons to consider pension wealth in wealth analysis are manifold. Most importantly, entitlements from statutory and company pension insurance plans play an important role for material security and well‐being for the insured population. Further, if pension entitlements are a substitute for private savings schemes, differences in pension institutions (generosity, subsidization of pension plans, coverage, etc.) might jeopardize the comparability of standard wealth aggregates across countries. Similarly, a pension system may undermine the comparability of standard wealth aggregates between non‐covered and covered individuals 1 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic‐research/research‐networks/html/researcher_hfcn.en.html 2 http://www.lisdatacenter.org/our‐data/lws‐database/ 3 Matching survey and administrative data is difficult given the limited set of potential matching variables in administrative datasets. 2 or households within a country. A vast literature examines the interplay between pension wealth, household savings, and wealth accumulation (i.e. Dicks‐Mireaux 1984, Gustman and Steinmeier 1999, Bottazzi et al. 2006). Further, subsidization schemes for private retirement savings might affect peoples’ savings decisions, both the savings levels and the composition of portfolios. Case studies for the German case include Coppola and Reil‐Held (2009), Corneo et al. (2009), Corneo et al. (2010) and Pfarr and Schneider (2011); see Engen et al. (1996) for the US, and Chetty et al. (2013) for Denmark. In the waves collected in 2012 and 2013, the Socio‐economic Panel (SOEP) collected in‐ depth information on individual pension entitlements in Germany both for the retired and non‐retired population. For the first time, the non‐retired population was asked to report its current entitlements according to the obligatory official annual information issued by the insurers. With the entitlements of the retired and non‐retired population, we define pension wealth following the “accrual method” (see Wolff 2015)4 as the expected capitalized value of entitlements. For the retired, the entitlements are defined by the pension stream from “today,” defined as 2012, to death. For the non‐retired, it is the pension stream from retirement age to death – based on accumulated remuneration points until “today,” again defined as 2012. With individual pension wealth for the whole population at hand, we broaden previous wealth inequality analyses for Germany by computing an augmented wealth aggregate, the sum of individual net worth and individual pension wealth; measuring and decomposing wealth inequalities; as well as studying wealth accumulation processes over the life course of residents in East and West Germany. Augmented wealth is defined as the sum of two broad wealth components: net worth and pension wealth. Net worth includes real and financial assets (net of debt) plus current values of private‐pension plans (including so‐called Riester‐ and Rürup pensions).5 Pension wealth is the sum of present values of statutory‐pension, civil‐servant, and company‐pension entitlements. For the interpretation of the level and distribution of augmented wealth, three aspects should be noted. First, financial wealth in the form of standard monetary deposits is not subject to taxes and social security contributions in Germany. However, when converting 4 An alternative approach is the “on‐going concern” treatment. It derives pension wealth under the assumption that employees continue to work at their place of employment until expected date of retirement. We abstain from implementing this approach as it requires strong assumptions about employees’ future employment biographies and retirement decisions. 5 We have included private‐pension plans in net worth as those plans can hardly be distinguished from other types of private savings. 3 assets or real wealth into money, taxes