IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/127769.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Condorcet was wrong, Pareto was right: families, inheritance and inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Cowell, Frank
  • Van de Gaer, Dirk

Abstract

Using a simple model of family decision making we examine the processes by which the wealth distribution changes over the generations, focusing in particular on the division of fortunes through inheritance and the union of fortunes through marriage. We show that the equilibrium wealth distribution exists under standard assumptions and has a Pareto tail that can be characterized in a simple way for a variety of inheritance rules and marriage patterns. The shape of the distribution is principally determined by the size distribution of families. We show how changes in fertility, inheritance rules and inheritance taxation affect long-run inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Cowell, Frank & Van de Gaer, Dirk, 2025. "Condorcet was wrong, Pareto was right: families, inheritance and inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 127769, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:127769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/127769/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inheritance; inheritance taxation; wealth distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    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:ehl:lserod:127769. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.