Despite recent advances in data collection and the growing number of empirical studies that examine private intergenerational transfers, there still exist significant gaps in our knowledge. Who transfers what to whom, and why do they it? I argue that some of these gaps could be filled by departing from the standard parent-child framework and concentrating instead on fathers, mothers, sons and daughters in a way that accounts for fundamental--and sometimes obvious--male-female differences in concerns and objectives in family life. Elementary sex differences in reproductive biology constitute the basic building blocks of studies of family behavior in many disciplines, but despite recent progress they get far less attention than they deserve in economic studies of the family. I explore, separately, the implications of three basic biological facts for intergenerational transfer behavior. The first is paternity uncertainty: how does it affect the incentives of fathers, mothers and of various grandparents to invest in children? The second is differing reproductive prospects of sons versus daughters: when are sons a better investment than daughters and vice versa? The third is conflict: How much acrimony might we expect to occur in families, and why? In examining these issues I also explore household survey data from the United States. This preliminary evidence is consistent with non-biological as well as biological explanations of behavior. Nonetheless, the biological focus confers two advantages, by generating falsifiable predictions and by illuminating new avenues for empirical work. There is enormous potential for further micro-data-based empirical work in this area.
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Length: 50 pages Date of creation: 31 Dec 2003 Date of revision: Publication status: published in Alicia H. Munnell and Annika Sunden, eds., Death and Dollars: The Role of Gifts and Bequests in America, (c) 2003 by The Brookings Institution. Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:605
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Institutional; Evolutionary
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Behrman, Jere R & Pollak, Robert A & Taubman, Paul, 1986.
"Do Parents Favor Boys?,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(1), pages 33-54, February.
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