Even though smokers incur higher health expenditures than nonsmokers of the same age, smokers have significantly higher mortality rates, so the expected lifetime health expenditure for a smoker is actually lower than for a nonsmoker. Because of this fact, some politicians and policy-makers have...

Empirical evidence suggests that girls work more than boys as child labor. In this paper, we develop a model to analyze the causes and consequences of the gender differentials in child labor. In particular, we analyze the effects of gender bias on child labor. We find that when parents can give...

Parents care about their children, spend resources on educating them and bequeath them some physical and/or human capital. Here we argue that the actions of the parents have an influence, not only on the productive possiblities open to the children (through the captital they inherit) but also on...

This paper discusses three alternative assumptions concerning household preferences (altruism, self-interest, and a desire for dynasty building) and shows that these assumptions have very different implications for bequest motives and bequest division. After reviewing some of the literature on...

Luxury bequests impart systematic effects of age to an investor's optimal allocation: the expected percentage allocation to equities rises throughout retirement. When bequests are luxuries the marginal utility of bequests declines more slowly than the marginal utility of consumption. This is...

Durables yield services through life but are also a store of value and both features may have important implications for savings and retirement decisions. Durables also affect bequests and thus induce intergenerational transfers. We show that allowing explicitly for durables has important...

Charitable bequests are a major source of income for charities but surprisingly little is known about them. The aim of this paper is to propose a multi-stage framework for analysing the bequest decision and to examine the evidence for Great Britain provided by new data on estates. The novelty of...

We present an empirical model of wealth transfer taxation in the revenue systems of the G7 countries—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US—over the period from 1965 to 2009. Our model emphasizes the influences of population aging and of the stock of household wealth in an...

This paper discusses three alternative assumptions concerning household preferences (altruism, self-interest, and a desire for dynasty building) and shows that these assumptions have very different implications for bequest motives and bequest division. After reviewing some of the literature on...

Life insurance proceeds are generally subject to the estate tax. An exception is when the policy is owned by the beneficiaries and the insured gives up ownership and control, including the ability to change beneficiaries. Should the insured strategically own the policy contract and potentially...