This paper presents a brief exposition of three theoretical models of household behavior and shows that these models have very different implications for bequest motives and bequest division, surveys previous empirical studies on bequest motives and bequest division, presents unique survey data...

In this article, I conduct an international comparison of the financial health of households using data on household wealth and indebtedness for the G-7 countries and show that, even though household borrowings in Japan were the highest among the G-7 countries, at least until 2000, household...