Intergenerational Wealth Mobility and the Role of Inheritance: Evidence from Multiple Generations
58 Pages Posted: 16 Aug 2016
There are 2 versions of this paper
Intergenerational Wealth Mobility and the Role of Inheritance: Evidence from Multiple Generations
Intergenerational Wealth Mobility and the Role of Inheritance: Evidence from Multiple Generations
Abstract
This study estimates intergenerational correlations in mid-life wealth across three generations, and a young fourth generation, and examines how much of the parent-child association that can be explained by inheritances. Using a Swedish data set we find parent-child rank correlations of 0.3–0.4 and grandparents-grandchild rank correlations of 0.1–0.2. Conditional on parents' wealth, grandparents' wealth is weakly positively associated with grandchild's wealth and the parent-child correlation is basically unchanged if we control for grandparents' wealth. Bequests and gifts strikingly account for at least 50 per cent of the parent-child wealth correlation while earnings and education are only able to explain 25 per cent.
Keywords: multigenerational mobility, bequests, mid-life wealth
JEL Classification: D31, J62
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation