The Strategic Bequest Motive

Andrei Shleifer, Lawrence Summers and B. Douglas Bernheim

Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics

Abstract: Although recent research suggests that intergenerational transfers play an important role in aggregate capital accumulation, our understanding of bequest motives remains incomplete. We develop a simple model of strategic bequests in which a testator influences the decisions of his beneficiaries by holding wealth in bequeathal forms and by conditioning the division of bequests on the beneficiaries' actions. The model generates falsifiable empirical predictions that are inconsistent with other theories of intergenerational transfer. We present econometric and other evidence that strongly suggests that bequests are often used as compensation for services rendered by beneficiaries.

Date: 1986
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Published in Journal of Labor Economics

Downloads: (external link)
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3721794/Summers_StrategicBequest.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not found (http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3721794/Summers_StrategicBequest.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3721794/Summers_StrategicBequest.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Strategic Bequest Motive (1986)
Journal Article: The Strategic Bequest Motive (1985)
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:hrv:faseco:3721794

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Office for Scholarly Communication (osc@harvard.edu).