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Post Mortem Reputation, Compensatory Gifts and Equal Bequests

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Author Info
Lundholm, Michael () (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University)
Ohlsson, Henry (Department of Economics Uppsala University)

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Abstract

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 private information, only known to the donor ant the donee, while the amounts bequeathed is public information. Second, we assume that parents care about the reputation that their bequest behavior will leave them after their death. More specifically, this reputation is deteriorating in the difference in amounts inherited. We show that, given these assumptions, the optimal choice of altruistic parents is compensatory gifts and equal bequests.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stockholm University, Department of Economics in its series Research Papers in Economics with number 1999:1.

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Length: 5 pages
Date of creation: 10 Sep 1999
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Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:1999_0001

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Postal: Department of Economics, Stockholm, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
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Related research
Keywords: Altruism; bequests; inheritance; gifts; equal division; post mortem reputation; social norm; information.;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism

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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.:
  1. Wilhelm, M.O., 1990. "Bequest Behavior And The Effect Of Heirs' Earnings: Testing The Altruistic Model Of Bequests," Papers 9-90-12, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
    Other versions:
  2. Arrondel, L. & Masson, A. & Pestieau, P., 1996. "Bequest and inheritance: empirical issues and France-U.S. comparison," DELTA Working Papers 96-19, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  3. Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau, 1996. "Bequests as a heir "discipline device"," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 405-414.
    Other versions:
  4. Dunn, Thomas A. & Phillips, John W., 1997. "The timing and division of parental transfers to children," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 135-137, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Stark, Oded, 1998. "Equal bequests and parental altruism: compatibility or orthogonality?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 167-171, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. Ohlsson, Henry, 2007. "The equal division puzzle – empirical evidence on intergenerational transfers in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2007:10, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Yang-Ming Chang, 2007. "Transfers and bequests: a portfolio analysis in a Nash game," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 277-295, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Alessandro Balestrino, 2000. "Gifts, Lies and Bequests," CHILD Working Papers wp01_00, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY. [Downloadable!]
  4. Francois-Charles Wolff & Seymour Spilerman & Claudine Attias-Donfut, 2005. "Do Parents Help More their Less Well-Off Children? Evidence from a Sample of Migrants to France," Microeconomics 0504001, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  5. Luc Arrondel & André Masson, 2002. "Altruism, Exchange or Indirect Reciprocity: What do the Data on Family Transfers Show?," DELTA Working Papers 2002-18, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Hochguertel , Stefan & Ohlsson, Henry, 2000. "Compensatory inter vivos gifts," Working Papers in Economics 31, Göteborg University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Stefan Hochguertal & Henry Ohlsson, 2000. "Inter Vivos Gifts: Compensatory or Equal Sharing?," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0699, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  8. Jellal, Mohamed, 2009. "A Theory of Educational Inequality Family and Agency Costs," MPRA Paper 17434, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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