Is It True Love? Altruism Versus Exchange in Time and Money Transfers

Rob Alessie, Viola Angelini and Giacomo Pasini

De Economist, 2014, vol. 162, issue 2, 193-213

Abstract: This paper investigates what motivates intergenerational inter-vivos time and money transfers. We consider a model in which transfers may be driven not only by altruism, but also by exchange considerations. We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to discriminate between the two motives. We show that both if we consider money transfers from parents to children and time transfers from children to parents, the empirical evidence rejects pure altruism in favor of exchange. This result has important policy implications on the effectiveness of formal care provision as a substitute for informal care and on the impact of taxation on transfers. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Intergenerational transfers; Altruism; Exchange; D12; J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Working Paper: Is it true love? Altruism versus exchange in time and money transfers (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:decono:v:162:y:2014:i:2:p:193-213

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DOI: 10.1007/s10645-013-9221-5

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