The reason is simple and was touched on earlier: the lion’s share of household wealth consists of “real assets” (that is, assets directly related to a real economic activity, such as a house or shares in a corporation, the price of which therefore evolves as the related activity evolves) rather than “nominal assets” (that is, assets whose value is fixed at a nominal initial value, such as a sum of money deposited in a checking or savings account or invested in a government bond that is not indexed to inflation).
