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Bequests and the Accumulation of Wealth in the Eurozone

This paper empirically compares the contribution of the two major wealth accumulation
factors - earned income and inheritances - to the net wealth position of households in the
Eurozone. The elasticities of both wealth sources differ considerably across countries and are
overly non-linear. Depending on the position in the wealth distribution, an increase of one percentile in the income distribution corresponds to 0.1-0.6 percentiles in the net wealth distribution. We find substantially stronger effects for inheritances vis-á-vis income. In Greece,
Portugal, and Austria, households have to climb around three percentiles in the income distribution
to compensate a one percentile increase in the inheritance distribution. The findings
clearly suggest that bequests play a stronger role in wealth accumulation than earned income. / Series: INEQ Working Paper Series

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:4841
Date02 1900
CreatorsHumer, Stefan, Moser, Mathias, Schnetzer, Matthias
PublisherWU Vienna University of Economics and Business
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePaper, NonPeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
Relationhttp://www.ineq.at, http://epub.wu.ac.at/4841/

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