Born in the land of milk and honey: The impact of economic growth on individual wealth accumulation

Konferenzbeitrag

Economic growth varies substantially across regions and over time. This paper shows that economic growth in a person's birth place is an important determinant for wealth in adulthood. We exploit a new dataset that oversamples wealthy individuals in Germany and includes information on birth district, current residence, individual wealth, gifts and inheritances and parental background. To identify the effect of economic growth on children's wealth we match the population of heirs to statistically equivalent non-heirs. We use regression analysis to determine the effect of regional economic growth on this inherited fraction of wealth. At an average level of GDP at birth, a one standard deviation higher per capita GDP growth at birth increases wealth in adulthood by roughly 130,000 Euro.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2021: Climate Economics

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers ; Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
• Subject: wealth distribution ; regional inequality ; intergenerational transmission

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bartels, Charlotte ; König, Johannes ; Schröder, Carsten
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Kiel, Hamburg
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/242398