The effects of market and policy reforms on poverty and inequality in Latin America have been of considerable concern. The region continues to have relatively great income inequalities. Two different societies with the same income distribution may have different levels of social welfare because...

High inequality has long been regarded as one of the main problems facing Latin American countries. To understand better the determinants of inequality and to help guide thinking about policy options, it is useful to know whether inequality mainly reflects low intergenerational mobility or...

The Swedish comprehensive school reform implied an extension of the number of years of compulsory school from 7 or 8 to 9 for the entire nation and was implemented as a social experiment by municipality between 1949 and 1962. A previous study (Meghir and Palme, 2005) has shown that this reform...

We study the transmission of risk attititudes in a unique survey of mothers and children in which both participated in an incentivised risk preference elicitation task. We document that risk preferences are correlated between mothers and children when the children are just 7 to 8 years old. This...

We compare the earnings and the intergenerational earnings mobility of immigrants with natives in Sweden. We find an overall convergence in average earnings between immigrants and natives across generations. This convergence hides a divergence in average earnings between groups of immigrants...

The institutional structures of the various types of European welfare state were established around extra revenues called the demographic dividend that used to be easily available throughout the decades of the 20st century. They, however, ceased to be available at the end of that century. The...

This paper argues that currently advanced, aging economies experienced a qualitative change in the role of public education during the process of industrialization. In the early phases of the Industrial Revolution, public education was regarded as a duty that regulated child labor and thereby...

This paper analyzes what adult children would do for their parents were they frail and in need of long-term care. Focusing on the special case of parents' illness, the paper then investigates altruism in Japanese children. Descriptive statistics show that about 30% of adult children living...

This paper finds that individuals in Japan do not leave very significant bequests, that parents often require a quid pro quo for bequests to their children, and that wealthier individuals leave less bequests, meaning that bequests ameliorate wealth inequalities.

Classified broadly, two motives for intra-family transfers exist: altruism and selfishness. This paper examines two selfish hypotheses - the exchange motive (strategic bequest motive)and the demonstration effect - using a new Japanese micro data set. My analysis of the determinants of...