Do Transfer Taxes Reduce Intergenerational Transfers?

We estimate the effect of taxes on intergenerational transfers exploiting a sequence of Italian reforms culminating with the abolishment of transfer taxes. We use the 1993-2006 Survey of Household Income and Wealth, which has data on real estate transfers received and information on potential donors as well as recipients. Differences-in-differences estimates indicate that the abolition of transfer taxes increased the probability that high-wealth donors make a transfer by 2 percentage points and square meters transferred by 5.5 meters relative to poorer donors. Since we have data only on real estate transfers, we cannot rule out that the effect of the reform reflects also a change in the composition of transfers.