Capitalist Versus Family Bequest: An Econometric Model with Two Endogenous Regimes.

Wealth is highly concentrated among a few very rich individuals. The usual models of wealth transmission offer life-cycle and family motives for bequests. The hypothesis here is that those motives are not likely to be active for very rich individuals. Using a sample of French estate records over-weighted in very rich individuals, we show, by estimating a model with two endogenous alternative regimes, that the variables influencing the bequests of the less rich are not active for the very wealthy.