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Survey Estimates of Wealth - Mathematica Policy Research

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holdings. The PSID has also realized significantly lower item nonresponse rates on most <strong>of</strong> its<br />

wealth items than either the SCF or the SIPP.<br />

The HRS, which is also a panel study, began in 1992 with a sample <strong>of</strong> about 7,600<br />

households containing at least one individual born between 1931 and 1941. These initial<br />

respondents have been reinterviewed every two years. A companion survey, the Asset and<br />

Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old <strong>Survey</strong> (AHEAD), was started a year later, in 1993,<br />

with a sample <strong>of</strong> 7,500 households containing persons born in 1923 and earlier. These<br />

respondents were reinterviewed in 1995 and then again in 1998, when the HRS and AHEAD<br />

surveys were combined into a single data collection with a common instrument. At the same<br />

time, two additional HRS cohorts drawn from about 5,000 households were added. The “War<br />

Babies” cohort consists <strong>of</strong> persons born 1942 to 1947, and the “Children <strong>of</strong> the Depression”<br />

cohort includes persons born from 1924 through 1930, bridging the gap between the original<br />

HRS and AHEAD cohorts. Interviews with the combined sample will be conducted every two<br />

years. Additional cohorts will be added every six years to renew the combined sample’s<br />

representation <strong>of</strong> all persons over 50.<br />

Data on financial assets and liabilities have been collected since the first HRS interview in<br />

1992. Like the PSID, the HRS has employed unfolding brackets in its wealth modules, and it,<br />

too, has enjoyed comparatively low item nonresponse. To SSA, which has contributed to the<br />

funding <strong>of</strong> this new survey, the expanded HRS holds interest as an additional source <strong>of</strong> data on<br />

the wealth holdings <strong>of</strong> near- and recent retirees because it <strong>of</strong>fers significantly larger sample sizes<br />

<strong>of</strong> these populations than even the SIPP and because the data on income and wealth can be<br />

analyzed in conjunction with many types <strong>of</strong> outcomes.<br />

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