Empirical studies of intergenerational transfers usually find that bequests are equally divided among heirs while inter vivos gifts tend to be compensatory. Using the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we find that only 4% of parents who give, divide their gifts equally...

We study the motives behind parents’ transfers to their children, and the relationship between tangible transfers and educational investments. Another issue is the channels parents choose for tangible transfers. Do they use bequests and inter vivos gifts as substitutes or complements? We use a...

To what extent do people avoid taxes on intra-family transfers (bequests and gifts), and how would integration (unification) of the different transfers taxes affect tax avoidance? These issues are important for families and their welfare, as well as for governments and their possibilities of...

Systematic pediatric evidence shows that the morbidity rates for children in day care are increasing in the group size.Sick children are usually cared for at home by parents. This creates a negative externality of parents' labor force participation. The social optimum implies lower group size...

Workers with difficult working conditions can be expected to be com-pensated by higher wages. They may, for example, choose shift work because of compensating wages but it is also possible that they prefer shift work. The previous empirical evidence is mixed. We study if there are compensating...

The objective of this paper is to study if taxpayers behave in a loss averse manner when filing their tax returns. This is important for tax design but also for understanding human behavior in general. The predictions of prospect theory can be contrasted to those of expected utility theory. We...