OECD Expert Group on Micro Statistics on Household Income, Consumption and Wealth

The OECD Expert Group on Micro Statistics on Household Income, Consumption and Wealth brought together experts in household wealth statistics from a wide range of countries and from different regions of the world. The individual members and the organisations to which they were attached are listed in the Acknowledgments at the front of this publication.

The Group had three primary objectives:

• • To develop statistical standards for those domains of household economic resources where they are currently lacking, i.e. wealth.
• • To assess the consistency of standards in the various domains and present them within a coherent statistical framework at the micro level (including the development of guidelines for the analysis and dissemination of these statistics).
• • To consider the practical challenges to the collection of information on the joint distribution of household income, consumption and wealth.

This publication is the result of the Expert Group’s work on its first objective. The work included:

• • Reviewing and comparing country methodologies for producing household wealth statistics at the micro level and for assessing data availability.
• • Developing agreed definitions, classifications and other standards for household wealth statistics.
• • Assessing the measurement issues associated with the different components of household assets and liabilities and developing best practice guidelines.
• • Assessing the advantages and disadvantages of different sources and methods for measuring these components, including household surveys.
• • Reviewing and assessing a range of analytic measures that could be used in describing the distribution of household wealth.
• • Identifying the conceptual and definitional differences between the macro and micro approaches to measuring household wealth and assessing the feasibility of narrowing these differences.

This work was also closely linked to work pursued on the Group’s second and third objectives. In particular, the wealth standards described in this document are identical to those summarised in the companion publication, Framework for Statistics on the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth, which was developed in parallel by the Group.