Date of Award

1-1-2013

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Economics

First Advisor

Tracy Mott, Ph.D.

Keywords

Budget, Wealth

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to determine if households with moderate incomes have the opportunity to acquire pecuniary wealth. In an environment of increasing globalization, labor-eliminating technology, and an overburdened entitlement system, the position of wealth is necessary for households with a penchant for early retirement and particularly for those that will inevitably succumb to involuntary retirement. In these writings, qualitative and quantitative descriptions of wealth are offered; two microeconomic metrics are introduced to identify baseline wealth and to gauge proximity to this value; and strategies are devised to close the gap between these metrics.

The construct of the economic intertemporal household budget was used as the basis for this research whereby conventional measures of wealth, i.e. net worth and liquid net worth, have been coupled with historical and empirical household data to define and extrapolate wealth and wealth proximity metrics. The major finding is wealth is a dynamic variable contingent upon consumption level rather than income or saving levels. And because households exercise a greater degree of autonomy over consumption, moderate earners are afforded the same opportunities as high earners. The position of wealth is necessary because it sustains consumption in the event of an unwelcomed retirement and it can assuage reliance on entitlement programs. For the majority of households, wealth is a matter of choice.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Calvin E. Pierce

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

154 p.

Discipline

Economics

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