In this paper we describe a novel source of data on the full record of inheritance tax files in Italy, covering up to 63% of total deceased. The work documents a substantial rise in the total value of inheritance and gifts as a share of national income, from 8.4% in 1995 to 15.1% in 2016....

This paper studies the estimation of wealth distribution using estates left at death. We establish formal conditions for adopting a simplied version of the classic estate multi- plier method, using only minimal information on estates and mortality. We empirically validate these conditions and...