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The Marginal Propensity to Spend on Adult Children

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  • Joseph G. Altonji
  • Ernesto Villanueva

Abstract

We examine how much of an extra dollar of parental lifetime resources will ultimately be passed on to adult children in the form of inter vivos transfers and bequests. We infer bequests from the stock of wealth late in life. We use mortality rates and age specific estimates of the response of transfers and wealth to permanent income to compute the expected present discounted values of these responses to permanent income. Our estimates imply parents pass on between 2 and 3 cents out of an extra dollar of expected lifetime resources in bequests and about 2 cents in transfers. The estimates increase with parental income and are smaller for nonwhites. They imply that about 15 percent of the effect of parental income on lifetime resources of adult children is through transfers and bequests and about 85 percent is through the intergenerational correlation in earnings, although these estimates are sensitive to assumptions about the intergenerational earnings correlation, taxes, and the number of children. We compare our estimates to the implications of alternative computable benchmark models of savings behavior in order to assess the likely importance of intended bequests for the wealth/income relationship.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph G. Altonji & Ernesto Villanueva, 2003. "The Marginal Propensity to Spend on Adult Children," Working Papers 90, Barcelona School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:90
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    2. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2015. "Quantitative Models of Wealth Inequality: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 21106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mariacristina De Nardi & Giulio Fella, 2017. "Saving and Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 280-300, October.
    4. Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco & Van Long, Ngo, 2011. "The relative income hypothesis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1489-1501, September.
    5. Kawiński, Marcin, 2015. "Przegląd teorii finansów gospodarstw domowych w kontekście współczesnych uwarunkowań polityki publiczne," Studia z Polityki Publicznej / Public Policy Studies, Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, February.
    6. Uta Bolt & Eric French & Jamie Hentall Maccuish & Cormac O’Dea, 2018. "Intergenerational Altruism and Transfers of Time and Money: A Life-cycle Perspective," Working Papers wp379, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    7. Yang, Fang, 2013. "Social security reform with impure intergenerational altruism," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 52-67.
    8. Fang Yang, 2005. "Consumption Along the Life Cycle: How Different is Housing?," 2005 Meeting Papers 718, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Luigi Ventura & Charles Yuji Horioka, 2020. "The wealth decumulation behavior of the retired elderly in Italy: the importance of bequest motives and precautionary saving," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 575-597, September.
    10. Jinkook Lee & Drystan Phillips, 2011. "Income and Poverty among Older Koreans Relative Contributions of and Relationship between Public and Family Transfers," Working Papers WR-852, RAND Corporation.
    11. Cagetti, Marco & De Nardi, Mariacristina, 2008. "Wealth Inequality: Data And Models," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(S2), pages 285-313, September.
    12. Fang Yang, 2005. "Accounting for the heterogeneity in retirement wealth," Working Papers 638, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    13. Justine Hastings & Ebonya Washington, 2010. "The First of the Month Effect: Consumer Behavior and Store Responses," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 142-162, May.
    14. Frank Cowell & Dirk Van de gaer, 2017. "Condorcet was Wrong, Pareto was Right: Families, Inheritance and Inequality," STICERD - Public Economics Programme Discussion Papers 34, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    15. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Ngo Van Long, 2008. "A Permanent Income Version of the Relative Income Hypothesis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2361, CESifo.
    16. Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2004. "Do the Rich Save More?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 397-444, April.
    17. Siha Lee & Kegon Teng Kok Tan, 2023. "Bequest Motives and the Social Security Notch," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 888-914, December.
    18. Bianchi Suzanne, 2011. "Family Data and Research in the Health and Retirement Study," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 1-15, April.
    19. Fang Yang, 2009. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: How Different is Housing?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(3), pages 423-443, July.
    20. Francisco Alvarez‐Cuadrado & Mayssun El‐Attar Vilalta, 2018. "Income Inequality and Saving," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(6), pages 1029-1061, December.
    21. Jessamyn Schaller & Chase Eck, 2019. "Adverse Life Events and Intergenerational Transfers," Upjohn Working Papers 19-309, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    22. Sule Alan & Kadir Atalay & Thomas F. Crossley, 2015. "Do the Rich Save More? Evidence from Canada," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(4), pages 739-758, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bequests; intervivos transfers; permanent income;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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