TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rohwedder,Susann
AU  - Haider,Steven J.
AU  - Hurd,Michael
TI  - Increases in Wealth among the Elderly in the Early 1990s: How Much is Due to Survey Design?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10862
PY  - 2004
Y2  - November 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10862
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10862.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Susann Rohwedder
RAND
1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407
Tel: 310-393 0411,ext. 7885
Fax: 310-451-6923
E-Mail: Susann_Rohwedder@rand.org

Steven J. Haider
Department of Economics
Michigan State University
101 Marshall Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
Tel: 517/355-1860
Fax: 517/432-1068
E-Mail: haider@msu.edu

Michael D. Hurd
RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407
Tel: 310/451-6945
Fax: 310/451-6923
E-Mail: mhurd@rand.org
AB  - The Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) study shows a large increase in reported total wealth between 1993 and 1995. Such an increase is not found in other US household surveys around that period. This paper examines one source of this difference. We find that in AHEAD 1993 ownership rates of stocks, CDs, bonds, and checking and saving accounts were under-reported, resulting in under-measurement of wealth in 1993, and a substantial increase in wealth from 1993 to 1995. The explanation for the under-reporting is a combination of question sequence and wording in the AHEAD survey instrument.
ER  -