Drawing on two data sources from across Europe, we show that both bequest motives of parents and children’s gender composition shape unequal divisions of bequests. First, the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe reveals that observed bequests are divided unequally when children...

Wealth is increasingly unequally distributed in many countries. This study examines public perceptions of wealth deservingness and preferences for taxing the wealth of the rich, focusing on how opinions vary based on the amount, use, and origin of wealth. Drawing on an original vignette...

In the absence of a wealth register, Belgian wealth inequality needs to be estimated. Here I apply the mortality multiplier approach to Belgian inheritance tax tabulations and administrative microdata, collectively covering 1935 to 2022. Belgian wealth inequality has strongly declined during the...

In this study, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Kraft examines family foundations from a civil law, tax law and economic perspective. The author dispels widespread misconceptions about this legal institution, demonstrating that it is not merely a tax planning device, but rather a complex instrument that can be...

We study whether receiving a monetary gift from parents increases the intensity of parent-child social contact. We use unique longitudinal data that follows adult children and their older parents for more than a decade (between 2004 and 2015) across various European countries. We first document...

Wealth is increasingly unequally distributed in many countries. This study examines public perceptions of wealth deservingness and preferences for taxing the wealth of the rich, focusing on how opinions vary based on the amount, use, and origin of wealth. Drawing on an original vignette...

Women are more dependent on intra- and inter-generational transfers for wealth accumulation than men (Bartels et al. 2023, Black et al. 2022), yet the role of inheritance in closing gender wealth gaps remains poorly understood. Using Swedish registry inheritance data between 2002-2004 and panel...

In this study, we investigate the role of matrilineal kinship norms for gender gaps in labor market outcomes. We analyze the implementation of a reform that significantly altered the customary inheritance system by restricting practices within matrilineal ethnic groups, while those of...

Drawing on two data sources from across Europe, we show that both bequest motives of parents and children's gender composition shape unequal divisions of bequests. First, the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe reveals that observed bequests are divided unequally when children...

We study whether receiving a monetary gift from parents increases the intensity of parent-child social contact. We use unique longitudinal data that follows adult children and their older parents for more than a decade (between 2004 and 2015) across various European countries. We first document...

This paper examines how expecting to receive an inheritance impacts household savings decisions. Life-cycle consumption models indicate that the expectation of inheriting should reduce current savings plans for forward-thinking consumers. We investigate how inheritance expectations shape savings...

This paper examines how expecting to receive an inheritance impacts household savings decisions. Life-cycle consumption models indicate that the expectation of inheriting should reduce current savings plans for forward-thinking consumers. We investigate how inheritance expectations shape savings...

The intricate relationship between wealth redistribution policies and entrepreneurial vitality has long captivated the attention of economists and policymakers. Drawing on data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and manually collected information on inheritance taxation policy...

This paper argues that relative measures of intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity are closely related ways of quantifying the inheritability of inequality. We review both literatures for Latin America, looking both at income and educational persistence. We document very high...

Much of the observed cross-country variation in fertility aligns with the predictions of classic theories of the fertility transition: countries with higher levels of human capital, higher GDP per capita, or lower mortality rates tend to exhibit lower fertility. However, when examining changes...

We study how inheritance affects labor supply over the life cycle, and we quantify its aggregate impact. Tracking earnings histories around some 135,000 inheritances and 5,000 lottery wins, we exploit the quasi-random timing and size of these events to identify labor supply responses with high...

Bartels, Jäger and Obergruber (2024) examine how division rules for the inheritance of agricultural land affected distributional outcomes in 19th century and contemporary Germany. The authors use a regression discontinuity design to show that equal-division counties-those in which inheritance...

What happens across generations to random wealth shocks? Do they endure and even magnify, or do they dissipate? By implication, how much of modern wealth is attributable to events before 1900? This paper uses random shocks to family size in England before 1880, that created wealth shocks for the...

A recent article in PNAS "The Inheritance of Social Status in England, 1600-1822" (Clark, 2023) argued that social status in England throughout these years showed a strong and stable pattern of inheritance. This pattern was consistent with the additive genetic inheritance of social abilities, in...

Understanding how household decisions react to economic shocks is important for effective policy design. Using detailed individual consumption data, we investigate how household consumption responds to unexpected inheritance realizations within an inter-temporal collective framework....

In this paper, we discuss bequests and other intergenerational transfers and what impact they have on the consumption, saving, and labor supply behavior of households. We show that bequests and other intergenerational transfers are prevalent in most countries, that they are sometimes motivated...

There is growing interest in understanding how gender influences the accumulation of wealth. While prior studies focused on labor-related determinants, our research focuses on inheritances and gifts. Using unique survey data that oversamples the top 1% of wealth holders in Germany, we show that...