The inheritance tax is often seen as an effective tool to reduce wealth inequality, to raise public budgets if needed … the OECD. The purpose of this paper is therefore to shed light on the question whether the inheritance tax is a promising … tool for fighting wealth inequality without having distorting effects for the economy. For this purpose, the distributional …

's birth place is an important determinant for wealth in adulthood. We exploit a new dataset that oversamples wealthy … individuals in Germany and includes information on birth district, current residence, individual wealth, gifts and inheritances … and parental background. To identify the effect of economic growth on children's wealth we match the population of heirs …