IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nse/doctra/g2016-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Time to smell the roses? Risk aversion, the timing of inheritance receipt, and retirement

Author

Listed:
  • B. GARBINTI

    (Insee, Crest et Banque de France)

  • S. GEORGES-KOT

    (Insee)

Abstract

Understanding when workers choose to retire is key for the design of public pensions and labor market policies. Private wealth may play a substantial role in retirement decisions, but little is still known on the link between the two. In this paper, we explore a new way to leverage the receipt of an inheritance as a plausible exogenous wealth shock, by relying on the precise timing of receipt. Using retrospective calendars from the French wealth survey, we find that, at any age between 55 and 65, chances of current labor market exit are 40% higher among individuals who inherit at that age than among those who inherit in the next few years. To go further in understanding the effect of inheritance receipt on labor force participation, we develop a model of retirement choice with risk aversion and an endogenous replacement rate and we test its predictions. We find that inheritance receipt triggers current labor force exit because risk averse individuals plan their retirement date according to the certainty equivalent of their bequest, not its expected value.

Suggested Citation

  • B. Garbinti & S. Georges-Kot, 2016. "Time to smell the roses? Risk aversion, the timing of inheritance receipt, and retirement," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2016-01, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
  • Handle: RePEc:nse:doctra:g2016-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bnsp.insee.fr/ark:/12148/bc6p06zrc19/f1.pdf
    File Function: Document de travail de la DESE numéro G2016-01
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bertrand Garbinti & Frédérique Savignac, 2020. "Accounting for Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in France over the 20th Century: Method and Estimations," Working papers 776, Banque de France.
    2. repec:ces:ifodic:v:16:y:2018:i:2:p:50000000002755 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret, 2018. "The Impact of Inheritance and Transfer Taxation on Economic Behaviours and Inequality: A Literature Review for France," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(02), pages 13-18, August.
    4. Crusius, Tobias L. & von Werder, Marten, 2017. "The affluency to quit: How inheritances affect retirement plannings," Discussion Papers 2017/24, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    5. von Werder, Marten, 2018. "Intergenerational transfers: How do they shape the German wealth distribution?," Discussion Papers 2018/15, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    6. Margit Schratzenstaller, 2023. "Behavioral Responses to Inheritance Taxation. A Review of the Empirical Literature," WIFO Working Papers 668, WIFO.
    7. Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan & Infante, Jose, 2018. "Behavioral responses to inheritance tax: Evidence from notches in France," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 21-34.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Retirement; inheritance; labor supply; risk aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nse:doctra:g2016-01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: INSEE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inseefr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.