%0 Generic
%A Gibson, J.
%A Le, T.
%A Stillman, S.
%C London, UK
%D 2007
%F discovery:14264
%I Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration
%K D31, G11, J15
%N 15/07
%T What explains the wealth gap between immigrants and the New Zealand born?
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/14264/
%X Immigrants are typically found to have less wealth and hold it in different forms than  the native born. These differences may affect both the economic assimilation of  immigrants and overall portfolio allocation when immigrants are a large share of the  population, as in New Zealand. In this paper, data from the 2001 Household Savings  Survey are used to examine wealth differences between immigrants and the New  Zealand-born. Differences in the allocation of portfolios between housing and other  forms of wealth are described. Unconditional and conditional wealth quantiles are  examined using parametric models. Semiparametric methods are used to decompose  differences in net worth at different parts of the wealth distribution into the part due  to differences in characteristics and the part due to differences in the returns to  characteristics.