The Effect of Inheritance Receipt on Labor and Capital Income: Evidence from Swedish Panel Data

Mikael Elinder, Oscar Erixson and Henry Ohlsson

No 2010:3, Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies from Uppsala University, Department of Economics

Abstract: In this paper we study the effects of inheritances on labor and capital income of heirs. We use unique register based Swedish panel data to estimate both short run and medium run responses. The few existing studies have mainly focused on short run responses, using data from the U.S. Models of life cycle consumption stress that anticipated and unanticipated income changes have different impacts on the optimal consumption path. In Sweden, as in other countries with extensive public insurances and succession rules that prohibit decedents from bequeathing the entire estate to others than their children, inheritances are likely to be anticipated to a higher degree than in the U.S. Our estimates suggest that there is a negative effect of inheriting on labor income in the year of the receipt and the year after, and that the negative effect is even larger two to three years after receiving the inheritance. Moreover, we find that capital income increases by an amount corresponding to wealth increasing at least by the amount inherited.

Keywords: inheritances; bequests; windfall gains; labor supply; capital income; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D80 D91 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2010-04-27
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Elinder, Mikael, Oscar Erixson and Henry Ohlsson, 'The Effect of Inheritance Receipt on Labor and Capital Income: Evidence from Swedish Panel Data' in The impact of inheritances on heirs’ labor and capital income' in B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2012.

Downloads: (external link)
http://ucfs.nek.uu.se/digitalAssets/129/129562_wp20103.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://ucfs.nek.uu.se/digitalAssets/129/129562_wp20103.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://ucfs.nek.uu.se/digitalAssets/129/129562_wp20103.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.uu.se/institution/nationalekonomiska/forskning/forskningscentrum/uppsala-center-for-fiscal-studies/digitalAssets/129/129562_wp20103.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Impact of Inheritances on Heirs' Labor and Capital Income (2012)
Working Paper: Carnegie visits Nobel: Do inheritances affect labor and capital income? (2011)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2010_003

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies from Uppsala University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P. O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Katarina Grönvall ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).