遗产的（不）重要性
The (Un)Importance of Inheritance
Journal of the European Economic Association · 2024 · [{"name": "Sandra E. Black", "affiliation": ["Columbia University", "Norwegian School of Economics"]}, {"name": "Paul J. Devereux", "affiliation": ["University College Dublin"]}, {"name": "Fanny Landaud", "affiliation": ["Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique", "CY Cergy Paris Université"]}, {"name": "Kjell G. Salvanes", "affiliation": ["Norwegian School of Economics"]}]
中文摘要
来自父母的转移——无论是以赠与还是遗产的形式——作为不平等的一个来源受到了广泛关注。本文利用挪威全体人口的行政数据，考察资本化的赠与和遗产在总流入（定义为该期间净劳动收入、政府转移支付以及所收到的赠与和遗产的资本化总和）中所占的份额。与其他研究一致，我们发现赠与和遗产的接收存在很大的不平等。然而，赠与和遗产仅占总流入的一小部分；无论是在总流入分布的各分位点，还是在各个净财富水平上，情况都是如此。赠与和遗产只有在父母非常富有的人群中，才是收入流的重要来源。此外，赠与和遗产对总流入分布的影响很小，这表明遗产税在缓解不平等方面可能作用有限。
Abstract
Abstract Transfers from parents—either in the form of gifts or inheritances—have received much attention as a source of inequality. This paper uses administrative data for the population of Norway to examine the share of the Total Inflows (defined as the capitalized sum of net labor income, government transfers, and gifts and inheritances received over the period) accounted for by capitalized gifts and inheritances. Consistent with other work, we find that there is much inequality in the receipt of gifts and inheritances. However, gifts and inheritances represent a small share of Total Inflows; this is true across the distribution of Total Inflows, as well as at all levels of net wealth. Gifts and inheritances are only an important source of income flows among those who have very wealthy parents. Additionally, gifts and inheritances have very little effect on the distribution of Total Inflows, suggesting that inheritance taxes may do little to mitigate inequality.