A Comparison of the Household Sector from the Flow of Funds Accounts and the Survey of Consumer Finances

This paper examines selected assets and liabilities from the FFA household sector and from the 1989 and 1992 SCF. SCF and FFA comparisons have proved difficult in the past, and previous research has not fully adjusted for definitional differences between the FFA and the SCF. This analysis addresses common misperceptions about the definitions of the FFA's assets and liabilities and describes the reconciliations between the FFA and SCF measures. The results show that for some asset and liability categories the SCF and FFA estimates are quite close. Measures of liabilities, however, match up better than those for assets.