Intergenerational Altruism and House Prices: Evidence from Bequest Tax Reforms in Italy
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE N° 947
22 Pages Posted: 24 May 2014
Date Written: May 21, 2014
Abstract
We identify the degree of intergenerational altruism in an OLG framework à la Barro exploiting the quasi-experimental variation generated by reforms of bequest taxation (estate or inheritance tax, in the U.S.) and taxes on inter vivos real estate donations (gift tax, in the U.S.) that were enacted in Italy between 2000 and 2001. Employing a unique data set containing information on the housing stock and house prices in 13 large Italian cities between 1993 and 2004, we identify the structural parameter of interest via the effect of changes in the tax rate on house prices. We find that the intergenerational altruism parameter is about 20%. Given the possible anticipation of the reform this estimate should be interpreted as a lower bound.
Keywords: altruism, bequests, inheritance tax, gift tax, house prices
JEL Classification: E60, E65, H24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Preference Heterogeneity and Optimal Capital Income Taxation
By Mikhail Golosov, Maxim Troshkin, ...
-
Optimal Taxation of Entrepreneurial Capital with Private Information
-
Optimal Taxation of Entrepreneurial Capital with Private Information
-
Designing Optimal Disability Insurance: A Case for Asset Testing
By Mikhail Golosov and Aleh Tsyvinski
-
Optimal Taxation with Endogenous Insurance Markets
By Mikhail Golosov and Aleh Tsyvinski
-
Inequality, Social Discounting, and Estate Taxation
By Emmanuel Farhi and Iván Werning
-
Inequality, Social Discounting and Estate Taxation
By Emmanuel Farhi and Iván Werning
-
Dynamic Mechanism Design with Hidden Income and Hidden Actions: Technical Appendix
-
Dynamic Contracting with Persistent Shocks
By Yuzhe Zhang