Inherited Wealth and Demographic Aging

Arbeitspapier

The role of inherited wealth in modern economies has increasingly become under scrutiny. This study presents one of the first attempts to shed light on how demographic aging could shape this role. We show that, in the absence of retirement annuities, or for a given level of annuitization, both increasing longevity and decreasing fertility should reduce the inherited share of total wealth in a given economy. Thus, aging is not likely to explain a recent surge in this share in some advanced economies. Shrinking retirement annuities, however, could offset and potentially reverse these effects. We also show that aging could increase the size of individual bequests vis-à-vis real wages. However, these bequests will be more unequally distributed if aging is driven by a drop in fertility. In comparison, the effect of increasing longevity on their distribution in non-monotonic.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 5984

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Household Saving; Personal Finance ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth ; Social Security and Public Pensions ; Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
• Subject: inherited wealth ; inheritance ; aging ; inequality ; social security

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Onder, Harun ; Pestieau, Pierre
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/145019
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET