Finance and Economics Discussion Series (FEDS)
July 1997
A Comparison of the Household Sector from the Flow of Funds Accounts and the Survey of Consumer Finances
Rochelle L. Antoniewicz
Abstract:
This paper compares figures on selected assets and liabilities from the FFA household sector with survey-based estimates from the 1989 and 1992 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Comparisons of the FFA asset and liability categories to those constructed from the SCF have proved difficult in the past, and many previous studies have not fully adjusted for definitional differences between the SCF and FFA. This analysis addresses some common misperceptions about the definitions of the various components of the FFA household sector’s assets and liabilities, describes more fully the reconciliations between the SCF and FFA measures, provides a more detailed classification of assets and liabilities, and offers alternative explanations for the discrepancies between the SCF and FFA household wealth components. The results show that for some asset and liability categories the SCF and FFA estimates are quite close in 1989 and 1992. The measures of total liabilities match up better than those for total assets.
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