Using a matched sample of federal estate and personal income tax returns, we examine how the receipt of an inheritance affects an individual's decision to become an entrepreneur and the amount of capital employed in the new enterprise. These findings are consistent with the presence of liquidity...

This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurs' pesonal income tax situations on the growth rate of their enterprises. We analyze the personal income tax returns of a large number of sole proprietors before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and determine how the substantial reductions in...

We investigate how undergraduates’ financial aid packages affect their subsequent donative behavior as alumni. We analyze micro data on alumni giving at an anonymous research university, and focus on three types of financial aid, scholarships, loans, and campus jobs. Consistent with the view...

We develop a technique to assess the impact of changes in mortgage markets on households, exploiting an implication of the permanent income hypothesis: The higher a household's expected future income, the higher its desired consumption, ceteris paribus. With perfect credit markets, desired...