We study the Becker and Lewis (1973) quantity-quality model of children adding an explicit child care time constraint for parents. They can purchase day care or take care of the children themselves. Our results are: (i) If there is a combination of purchased and own care, the effect of income on...

The empirical evidence suggests that parents use inter vivos gifts (i.e., transfers of tangible and financial property) to compensate less well off children whereas post mortem bequests are divided equally among siblings. We study a theoretical model assuming, first, that the amounts given is...

The probability of income loss depends on talent and effort. Effort has positive externalities and therefore individuals are proportion to their perceived diligence. The social norm requires more effort from individuals perceived as more talented, but talent is private information and...

The objective of this essay is to study to what extent parents divide their estates unequally between their children and the determinants of this decision. We use a new dataset based on the estate reports for almost 70,000 Swedish widows, widowers, divorcees and unmarried individuals who died...

We study tax-driven intergenerational asset shifting using a salient tax discontinuity and rich data on both donors and recipients. When the Swedish inheritance tax was in place, heirs could lower their inheritance tax bills by passing on part of the inheritance to their children. We present...

We document an episode with considerable tax avoidance that occurred in Italy after 2008 when the Italian government reformed the property taxation by abolishing taxation on principal residences and increasing taxation on secondary properties. In presence of a very low inter vivos gift tax,...

Empirical studies of intergenerational transfers usually find that bequests are equally divided among heirs while inter vivos gifts tend to be compensatory. Using the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we find that only 4 percent of parents who give divide their gifts...

The objective of this paper is to study when and how much labor supply and savings of heirs respond to inheritances. We estimate fixed effects models following direct heirs, inheriting in 2004, during the years 2000 - 2008 using Swedish panel data. Our first main result is that the more the heir...

Does taxation affect the timing of death? This is an interesting example of how behavior might be affected by economic incentives. We study how two changes in Swedish inheritance taxation 2003/04 and 2004/05 have affected mortality during the turns of the years. Our first main result is that...

Who is wealthy? This paper presents empirical estimates of household movements into and out of the top percents of the wealth distribution over individual life cycles. There are life-cycle motives and precautionary motives for wealth accumulation. The opportunities to accumulate wealth create...