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THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN FRANCE (1977): A FIRST ATTEMPT AT THE ESTATE DUTY METHOD
Author(s) -
Fouquet Annie,
StraussKahn Dominique
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4991.1984.tb00488.x
Subject(s) - estate , balance sheet , economics , asset (computer security) , net worth , real estate , distribution (mathematics) , national wealth , actuarial science , sample (material) , national accounts , econometrics , capitalization rate , demographic economics , statistics , mathematics , finance , macroeconomics , chromatography , computer science , debt , mathematical analysis , chemistry , real estate investment trust , computer security
This paper reports upon the first official application of the estate multiplier method of estimating the wealth distribution to French data. It is based upon a sample of estate duty returns filed during the period September‐December 1977. The sampling rate was 5 percent for estates under one million francs, and 100 percent for estates over this level, giving a total of 5031 records. The data available did not permit a breakdown by type of asset. It did, however, permit classification of estates by age, sex, and occupation of decedent. Experiments were conducted using five different sets of mortality multipliers. The set of mortality multipliers judged most appropriate leads to an estimate of aggregate net wealth that is 77 percent of that given in the national balance sheet of the national accounts. Comparison of the distributions of wealth derived in these estimates suggest that the figures are consistent with those found in other countries.