Price-Level Changes and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth across the Euro Area
利用部门账户和家庭金融与消费调查数据，发现欧元区整体因意外价格下降而净损失财富，意大利等国损失最大，而比利时等国受益；家庭部门整体受益，但内部存在显著异质性，年轻中产家庭受损，老年富裕家庭受益，导致财富不平等加剧。
Abstract We show that unexpected price-level movements generate sizable wealth redistribution in the Euro Area (EA), using sectoral accounts and newly available data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The EA as a whole is a net loser of unexpected price-level decreases, with Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain losing most in per capita terms, and Belgium and Malta being net winners. Governments are net losers of deflation, while the household (HH) sector is a net winner in the EA as a whole. HHs in Belgium, Ireland, Malta, and Germany experience the biggest per capita gains, while HHs in Finland and Spain turn out to be net losers. Considerable heterogeneity exists also within the HH sector: relatively young middle class HHs are net losers of deflation, while older and richer HHs are winners. As a result, wealth inequality in the EA increases with unexpected deflation, although in some countries (Austria, Germany, and Malta) inequality decreases due to the presence of relatively few young borrowing HHs. We document that HHs’ inflation exposure varies systematically across countries, with HHs in high-inflation EA countries holding systematically lower nominal exposures.