This paper examines the bequest\gift behavior of altruistic parents who do not know their children's abilities and cannot observe their children's work effort. Parents are likely to respond to this information problem by making larger bequests to higher earning children and by using their...

We consider an infinite-horizon economy populated by two types of individuals, some individuals being more productive than others. Individuals live one period and are altruistic toward their children. Assuming that the allocation received by a given individual depends only on his type and the...

Altruistic parents may transfer resources to their offspring by providing education, and by leaving bequests. We show that in the presence of wage taxation, a small bequest tax may improve efficiency in an overlapping-generations framework with only intended bequests, by enhancing incentives of...

This paper examines the bequest\gift behavior of altruistic parents who do not know their children's abilities and cannot observe their children's work effort. Parents are likely to respond to this information problem by making larger bequests to higher earning children and by using their...

We study the optimal tax system in a dynamic model where di¤erences in wages induce di¤erences in inheritances, and the transition from parent ability to child ability is described by a Markov chain. In accordance with empirical evidence, we assume that in any generation more able individuals...