Data from Cynamon and Fazzari, Review of Income and Wealth, 2017

Household Income, Demand, and Saving: Deriving Macro Data with Micro Data Concepts

By: Barry Z. Cynamon and Steven M. Fazzari

Publication: Review of Income and Wealth, (online version 2015, DOI: 10.1111/roiw.12206, journal version in 2017).

Abstract:  We develop adjustments to align the NIPA measures of key household variables with cash flow concepts that reflect household budgets and actual demand generated by households. The adjusted variables have substantially different behaviors across time than NIPA measures of household spending and saving. Furthermore, household income aggregated from micro data sets like the CPS, SCF, and PSID differs significantly from NIPA personal income. But the micro survey data likely reflect cash flow concepts rather than NIPA definitions. Indeed the adjusted cash flow measure of income eliminates much of the gap between micro data income variables and NIPA household income.

To access the data appendix for the paper that describes the adjustments in detail, click here.

Data updated through 2020

Excel file with updated data and charts through 2020 (this version incorporates any revisions to historical data done by the Bureau of Economic Analysis between the 2013 version used for the paper and the release of comprehensive 2020 annual data). 

The authors thank the Institute for New Economic Thinking for financial support that made the research behind this data project possible.