Читать книгу Wealth - Yuval Elmelech - Страница 13

Wealth has various meanings and serves different functions in people’s lives. These functions tend to vary over the life cycle and are contingent on people’s rank on the wealth ladder. The quotations selected for this chapter epigraph form a small sample of the wide-ranging meanings of wealth. In them this phenomenon represents, by turns, the difficult path to homeownership and the pride expressed by a first-time homeowner; the burden of debt and its cumulative impact on the life prospects of a young professional; and the financial security and privileges associated with excess of wealth.

How can one measure of economic resources embody such different personal experiences? An operational definition of wealth might serve as a good point of departure for investigating this question.

Personal wealth, as it was briefly introduced in the previous chapter, is generally defined as the sum of tangible and financial assets people own and is usually measured as the total value of those assets (e.g. main residence, other real estate, bank deposits, stocks, bonds, cars, other tangible assets) minus any outstanding debts (e.g. mortgages, credit cards, student loans). Information on household wealth is usually collected through surveys that ask household members—typically, the head of the household—to list all tangible and financial assets held by their household and to report the value and liabilities associated with each asset.