Are the Japanese Selfish, Altruistic, or Dynastic?

Charles Yuji Horioka ()

No CIRJE-F-134, CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo

Abstract: In this paper, I analyze a variety of evidence for Japan and, where available, for the United States on bequest practices, on the importance and nature of bequest motives, on bequest division, on the willingness of individuals to help others, etc., in order to shed light on which model of household behavior applies in the two countries. My results suggest that the selfish life cycle model is the dominant model of household behavior in both countries but that it is far more applicable in Japan than it is in the U.S., that the dynasty model is also more applicable in Japan than it is in the U.S. but that it is not of dominant importance even in Japan, and conversely, that the altruism model is far more applicable in the U.S. than it is in Japan.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv and nep-sea
Date: 2001-10
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cirje/research/dp/2001/2001cf134.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Are the Japanese Selfish, Altruistic, or Dynastic? (2001)
Journal Article: Are the Japanese Selfish, Altruistic or Dynastic? (2002)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tky:fseres:2001cf134

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo
Series data maintained by ().