A paper by Pirmin Fessler and Martin Schürz, both OeNB, was among the 2015 winners of the renowned Progressive Economy award presented at the Annual Progressive Economy Forum held at the European Parliament. The winning paper, selected by a high-level Scientific Board including Jospeph Stiglitz, James K. Galbraith, Lucrezia Reichlin and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, is entitled “Private Wealth Across European Countries: The Role of Income, Inheritance and the Welfare State.“

The key message of the paper is that, across all euro area countries, inheritance plays a decisive role in defining the relative position of households in the distribution of wealth. In Austria, for instance, receiving an inheritance is, on average, tantamount to receiving a rise in paid income that would catapult a household ahead of more than half of all households in the distribution of income. This neatly illustrates the different potential of saving and inheriting for influencing households’ position in the distribution of wealth.