Page 130 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS102 Peter V. et al.
levels which do not match their income levels. For more information,
reference is made to Van de Ven et al. (2017), chapter 9.

Whatever the case, having a large negative saving rate for a substantial
period of time is not sustainable, and may indeed lead to liquidity and
solvency problems, as a consequence of which the relevant households cannot
manage their indebtedness anymore, need to look for debt negotiations, or
even be declared bankrupt. Extending the distributional data for income,
consumption and saving with similar data on wealth could be very helpful in
analysing the results for the saving rates, as – disregarding investments in non-
financial assets (mainly dwellings and assets for running an enterprise) –
negative saving rates would have their counterpart in a run-down of financial
assets or the build-up of debt.

4. Discussion and Way Forward
13. The above work of the EG DNA has much in common with the work of
the Distributional National Accounts (DINA) team, led by Thomas Piketty.
Apart from possible differences in the way micro-macro gaps are being
allocated to groups of households, the main conceptual differences
concern the target population (private households in EG DNA vs. adult
individuals in DINA); the unit of analysis (equivalized household results vs.
“equal-split” and “individualistic” results); and the income definition
(household (adjusted) disposable income vs. national income). More
details on the differences between the two approaches can be found in
Zwijnenburg (2017).
14. A lot has already been achieved, and more and more countries start to
disseminate distributional data according to the methodology of the EG
DNA. However, much more still needs to be done. The main objectives of
the EG DNA for the near future are as follows:
i. regular collection and publication of available results;
ii. further exploring ways to improve the allocation, to household
groups, of the gaps between the totals from micro data and the
national accounts totals;
iii. development of a centralised method for countries that do not
compile own estimates;
iv. draft a handbook with detailed guidance on the methodology for
compiling estimates;
v. further development of nowcasting techniques to arrive at more
timely estimates; and
vi. include data on the distribution of wealth.
In relation to the last objective, the group intends to start looking into the
issue of wealth distribution, most probably in close cooperation with the ECB

119 | I S I W S C 2 0 1 9