This is a project that I started several years ago when I became curious about the uses of simulation modeling and their application to the study of wealth inequality. It seemed at the time that wealth ownership was an important, albeit little-studied part of well-being. When I began to explore the reasons that more people did not study wealth ownership, I quickly realized that the lack of data made it nearly impossible to ask many of the questions about wealth for which we would like answers. In this book, I use survey data to estimate patterns in wealth ownership and inequality given the data that are available, presented in what I hope is a single, consistent story. I also use simulation modeling to extrapolate in various ways from what the survey data tell us. Simulation modeling of the sort I do here makes it possible to use available data to explore some of the questions about wealth ownership and inequality that we otherwise might not be able to explore. Using this type of modeling, I am able to ask questions about how changes in historical patterns would have affected more recent distributional outcomes, to explore patterns in wealth ownership for times for which survey data do not exist, to extrapolate to future periods, and to estimate life-course patterns of ownership and mobility despite large gaps in data.

The methods I use are more widely used in policy circles than by those doing basic social science research, so they may at first seem unusual to some of the readers of this book. I hope, however, that the benefits of these methods become obvious.