The intersection of the standard altruism hypothesis with the quite strong evidence that bequests tend to be equal suggests that inter-vivos transfers should be strongly compensatory. Yet the available evidence is not in congruence with this implication. It has therefore been inferred that the...

This paper argues that an increase in the inequality of wealth prompts a stronger quest for status that in turn fosters the accumulation of wealth. It proposes a measure for an individual's want of social status. For a given level of a population's wealth, the corresponding aggregate measure of...

The large amount of equal division of bequests by parents who otherwise would have compensated the earning differences among their children is attributed to the cost associated with unequal bequests. This paper identifies a source of this cost and explains why equal bequests to children whose...

We provide an analytical-behavioral explanation for the observed positive relationship between income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, and the incentive to migrate. We show that a higher total relative deprivation of a population leads to a stronger incentive to engage in...

Most private giving between living generations takes the form of tied transfers, such as help with housing downpayments. We argue that parents provide help with downpayments in order to encourage the production of grandchildren, and that such a subsidization emanates from the demonstration...

We consider the case in which the opening up of an economy to migration results in departure of skilled workers. We point out that while the possibility of migration changes the set of employment opportunities, it also affects the structure of incentives: Higher returns to skills in the foreign...

We demonstrate how altruism can flourish in a population of nonaltruists. We assume that each individual plays a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game with his or her sibling and that the probability than an individual survives to reproduce is proportional to his or her payoff in this game. We model...

When productivity is fostered by an individual's own human capital as well as by the economy-wide average level of human capital, individuals under-invest in human capital. The provision of subsidies for the formation of human capital, conditional on the subsidy being self-financed by tax...

We study the joint role of altruism and impatience, and the impact of evolution in the formation of long-term time preferences and in the determination of optimal consumption and optimal bequests. We show how the consumption paths of dynasties relate to altruism and to impatience and we reason...

Quite often established migrants offer assistance and support that facilitate the arrival of new migrants. Why would migrants want other migrants to join them - so much so as to be willing to pay for them to come? We suggest a rationale. Our modeling framework is capable of explaining several...