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Income, wealth and economic inequality in Australia
Author(s) -
Tapper Alan,
Fenna Alan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/ajs4.47
Subject(s) - income inequality metrics , economics , microdata (statistics) , income distribution , inequality , distribution (mathematics) , economic inequality , wealth distribution , total personal income , national wealth , redistribution of income and wealth , labour economics , household income , comprehensive income , wealth elasticity of demand , net national income , demographic economics , gross income , public economics , macroeconomics , finance , unemployment , geography , population , mathematics , mathematical analysis , archaeology , sociology , census , state income tax , demography , tax reform
Abstract Economic well‐being and economic inequality are usually quantified using income measurements of various sorts. Such analyses overlook the contribution of wealth – a potentially very significant factor. In this article, we integrate wealth and income data to provide a more comprehensive accounting of economic well‐being and economic inequality in Australia. Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey microdata for 2009–2010, we present a cross‐sectional analysis of wealth‐adjusted income. We examine the relative contributions of income and wealth to wealth‐adjusted income and compare the distribution of wealth‐adjusted income to the distribution of income and the distribution of wealth. Wealth, we find, makes up between one‐fifth and two‐fifths of wealth‐adjusted income; the incorporation of wealth increases the inequality already present in the income distribution (as measured using final incomes) by about 25 per cent.