IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joecth/v67y2019i1d10.1007_s00199-017-1091-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bequests, estate taxes, and wealth distributions

Author

Listed:
  • Jing Wan

    (Tianjin University)

  • Shenghao Zhu

    (Beihang University)

Abstract

Bossmann et al. (J Public Econ 91:1247–1271, 2007) found that estate taxes reduce the long-run wealth inequality. This result contrasts with the findings of the previous literature with idiosyncratic labor efficiency risk. We use a decomposition technique, developed by Davies (J Labor Econ 4:538–559, 1986), to reinvestigate the impact of estate taxes on the long-run wealth inequality. We find that the different results of estate taxes are due to the different redistribution effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing Wan & Shenghao Zhu, 2019. "Bequests, estate taxes, and wealth distributions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(1), pages 179-210, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:67:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s00199-017-1091-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-017-1091-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00199-017-1091-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00199-017-1091-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Nardi, Mariacristina & Yang, Fang, 2016. "Wealth inequality, family background, and estate taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 130-145.
    2. Yann Algan & Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2011. "Incomplete markets and the output–inflation tradeoff," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 46(1), pages 55-84, January.
    3. Zilcha, Itzhak, 2003. "Intergenerational transfers, production and income distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 489-513, March.
    4. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1973. "Some further results on the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 188-204, April.
    5. António Antunes & Tiago Cavalcanti & Anne Villamil, 2015. "The effects of credit subsidies on development," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 58(1), pages 1-30, January.
    6. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Shenghao Zhu, 2011. "The Distribution of Wealth and Fiscal Policy in Economies With Finitely Lived Agents," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 123-157, January.
    7. Fellman, J, 1976. "The Effect of Transformations on Lorenz Curves," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 823-824, July.
    8. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    9. Yann Algan & Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2011. "Incomplete markets and the output-inflation tradeoff," Post-Print halshs-00654652, HAL.
    10. Kazuo Mino & Yasuhiro Nakamoto, 2016. "Heterogeneous conformism and wealth distribution in a neoclassical growth model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 62(4), pages 689-717, October.
    11. Benhabib, Jess & Bisin, Alberto & Zhu, Shenghao, 2015. "The wealth distribution in Bewley economies with capital income risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 489-515.
    12. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2004. "Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Links," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 743-768.
    13. James B. Davies & Peter J. Kuhn, 1991. "A Dynamic Model of Redistribution, Inheritance, and Inequality," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 324-344, May.
    14. Gastwirth, Joseph L, 1971. "A General Definition of the Lorenz Curve," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(6), pages 1037-1039, November.
    15. Bossmann, Martin & Kleiber, Christian & Walde, Klaus, 2007. "Bequests, taxation and the distribution of wealth in a general equilibrium model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1247-1271, August.
    16. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4077 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/58mqn6l8gc96n8lujj5560pkuf is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Solon, Gary, 1992. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 393-408, June.
    19. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    20. Chatterjee, Satyajit, 1994. "Transitional dynamics and the distribution of wealth in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 97-119, May.
    21. Zimmerman, David J, 1992. "Regression toward Mediocrity in Economic Stature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 409-429, June.
    22. Yann Algan & Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2011. "Incomplete markets and the output-inflation tradeoff," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00654652, HAL.
    23. PESTIEAU, Pierre & THIBAULT, Emmanuel, 2012. "Love thy children or money. Reflections on debt neutrality and estate taxation," LIDAM Reprints CORE 2396, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    24. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    25. Davies, James B, 1986. "Does Redistribution Reduce Inequality?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(4), pages 538-559, October.
    26. Gajdos, Thibault & Weymark, John A., 2012. "Introduction to inequality and risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1313-1330.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Marcello D’Amato & Christian Di Pietro & Marco M. Sorge, 2024. "Left and right: a tale of two tails of the wealth distribution," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(4), pages 1389-1433, December.
    2. Zhigang Feng & Anne Villamil, 2022. "Funding employer-based insurance: regressive taxation and premium exclusions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(2), pages 509-540, April.
    3. Angus C. Chu & Yuichi Furukawa & Sushanta Mallick & Pietro Peretto & Xilin Wang, 2021. "Dynamic effects of patent policy on innovation and inequality in a Schumpeterian economy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1429-1465, June.
    4. Berenice Anne Neumann & Niklas Scheuer, 2024. "The Impact of Bequest Taxation on Wealth Inequality - Theory and Evidence," Research Papers in Economics 2024-05, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    5. Fischer, Thomas, 2019. "Determinants of Wealth Inequality and Mobility in General Equilibrium," Working Papers 2019:22, Lund University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wan, Jing & Zhu, Shenghao, 2012. "Intergenerational links, taxation, and wealth distribution," MPRA Paper 39511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Shenghao Zhu, 2019. "A Becker–Tomes model with investment risk," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(4), pages 951-981, June.
    3. Bossmann, Martin & Kleiber, Christian & Walde, Klaus, 2007. "Bequests, taxation and the distribution of wealth in a general equilibrium model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1247-1271, August.
    4. Marcello D’Amato & Christian Di Pietro & Marco M. Sorge, 2024. "Left and right: a tale of two tails of the wealth distribution," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(4), pages 1389-1433, December.
    5. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Waldenström, Daniel, 2018. "Inheritance and wealth inequality: Evidence from population registers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 17-30.
    6. Johann K. Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2008. "Optimum taxation of inheritances," Economics working papers 2008-06, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Yang, Xiaoliang & Zhou, Peng, 2022. "Wealth inequality and social mobility: A simulation-based modelling approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 307-329.
    8. 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.
    9. Kaymak, Barıș & Leung, David & Poschke, Markus, 2020. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 13082, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Fischer, Thomas, 2019. "Determinants of Wealth Inequality and Mobility in General Equilibrium," Working Papers 2019:22, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    11. Christian Pietro & Marco M. Sorge, 2018. "Stochastic dominance and thick-tailed wealth distributions," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 123(2), pages 141-159, March.
    12. Pietro Reichlin, 2020. "Social welfare, parental altruism, and inequality," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1391-1419, September.
    13. Olivier Allais & Yann Algan & Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2020. "The Welfare Cost of Inflation Risk under Imperfect Insurance," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 138, pages 1-20.
    14. Gokhale, Jagadeesh & Kotlikoff, Laurence J. & Sefton, James & Weale, Martin, 2001. "Simulating the transmission of wealth inequality via bequests," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 93-128, January.
    15. Wei, Shang-Jin & Wu, Weixing & Zhang, Linwan, 2019. "Portfolio choices, Asset returns and wealth inequality: evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 423-437.
    16. Joachim Hubmer & Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith Jr., 2020. "Sources of US Wealth Inequality: Past, Present, and Future," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2020, volume 35, pages 391-455, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Javier Díaz-Giménez & Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2006. "Flat Tax Reforms in the U.S.: A Boon for the Income Poor," Working Papers wp2006_0611, CEMFI.
    18. Ono, Taiki, 2024. "Bequests and wealth inequality in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/562ju27dra9dnp6j4nvhq0tgfq is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    21. De Nardi, Mariacristina & Yang, Fang, 2014. "Bequests and heterogeneity in retirement wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 182-196.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wealth inequality; Bequest motives; Estate taxes; Lorenz dominance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    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:spr:joecth:v:67:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s00199-017-1091-7. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.