The paper examines the pattern of lifetime transfers during a period of uncertainty in estate taxation where the tax was set to expire, reintroduced, and its reach curtailed. More specifically, it examines lifetime gifts made during the past decade, with a focus on the size and frequency of...

This paper studies the relationship between the estate tax and the size of pre-tax bequests of (wealthy) donors: the micro elasticity of bequests. I do this for the two most popular bequest motives discussed in the literature under which this elasticity may be different from zero: warm glow and...

This paper presents a general equilibrium model with logarithmic preferences and technology. If the non-negativity constraint on bequests is strictly binding, then the bequest motive is characterized as inoperative. After determining the conditions for operative and inoperative bequest motives,...