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The ties that immigrants maintain across national borders are important indicators of both patterns of global interconnectedness and the incorporation of immigrants in their host countries. Scholars acknowledge that cross-border ties are extensive but debate the persistence of these ties following migration. We propose that simultaneously studying the home and host country financial investments of three large immigrant groups in the United States may provide unique insight into these important questions. Specifically, we study the home and host country investments of Mexican, Chinese, and Indian immigrants to the United States. We propose that home country financial ties are likely to decline over time but that host country financial ties will become stronger. However, significant and meaningful differences in these patterns are likely across the three groups we study. Using data from the New Immigrant Survey – a nationally representative multicohort longitudinal study of adult immigrants who are U.S. legal permanent residents – we find that cross-border investments are considerably less enduring than previous literature has found. However, portfolio composition and the location of critical assets vary in significant and informative ways by country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent protest movements brought attention to the one percent, a segment of the population that is critical to understanding inequality and social mobility but that attracts relatively little research attention. In this article, I survey current research on the one percent in the United States. I distinguish income from wealth and show that both are very concentrated but that the concentration of wealth, particularly financial wealth, is extremely high. I describe the demographic traits and finances of households who are in the one percent and discuss how these have changed in the past decade. I review literature that explains rising top incomes, and I propose that future research will usefully concentrate more on top wealth owners and on the demographic and life course processes that underlie income and wealth concentration. I conclude by speculating about why Americans are so tolerant of resource concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of racial differences and asset ownership on wealth distribution in the United States. Racial inequality in socioeconomic well-being has been documented extensively in the social sciences. Research has demonstrated that Blacks, in particular, have not kept pace with whites on indicators such as earnings, labor force participation, labor force outcomes, and quality of living conditions. In 1983, the correlation between total household income and household net worth was 0.49; and when asset income was removed from total income, the correlation dropped to 0.26. This suggests that many of the truly wealthy have rather low earnings, probably because they are able to support current consumption with income derived from assets. A micro-simulation model has been used to explore the relationship between racial differences in asset ownership and wealth inequality. Wealth inequality is still an unresolved issue in America. Levels of wealth inequality are so extreme that most people hardly register any wealth at all, yet wealth is one of the most central indicators of financial well-being and security. Racial differences in wealth ownership are particularly acute and have been relatively persistent in recent decades.

Wealth ownership in the United States has long been concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the population, yet researchers have paid relatively little attention to the causes and consequences of this inequality. In this essay, we review the literature that does exist on wealth accumulation and distribution. We begin with an examination of the reasons that wealth inequality has received little empirical attention. We then discuss methods of creating empirical estimates of wealth accumulation and distribution, and we present some estimates of recent trends in wealth inequality. We explore a diverse collection of research that explains these trends, covering treatments of aggregate influences and individual and household factors. We conclude the chapter with a review of research on intergenerational processes and wealth mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]