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The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation
Open accessAbstract
This paper uses historical u.S. data to directly estimate the contribution of intergenerational transfers to aggregate capital accumulation.The evidence presented indicates that intergenerational transfers account for the vast majority of aggregate U.S. capital formation; only a negligible fraction of actual capital accumulation can be traced to life cycle or "hump" savings.~major difference between this study and previous investigations of this issue is the use of actual rather than hypothetical longitudinal age consumption profiles.These profiles are simply too flat to generate substantial life cycle savings.This paper suggests the importance of and need for substantially greater research and data collection on intergenerational transfers.Life~cle models of savings which emphasi-ze-sav4ngs.forr-e-t-kemen-t-as---the dominate form of capital accumulation sh()t11e.t__g:l,YIiLW~Y tomodelswhiGh--emp.has.betherather
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Cited by
Intergenerational Transfers and the Accumulation of Wealth
Gale, W. G., & Scholz, J. K. (1994) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.8.4.145 · Cited by 592
Wealth Inequality in the United States
Keister, L. A., & Moller, S. (2000) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.63 · Cited by 477
Wealth and Stratification Processes
Spilerman, S. (2000) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.497 · Cited by 457
“Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century”
Smith, M., Yagan, D., Zidar, O., & Zwick, E. (2019) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjz020 · Cited by 263
On the Intergenerational Transmission of Economic Status
Lee, S. Y. (., & Seshadri, A. (2019) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/700765 · Cited by 171
Metadata
- Authors
- Kotlikoff, L., & Summers, L.
- Venue
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Publisher
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Published
- 1980-02
- OpenAlex
- W2891970589
- Cited by
- 736
- References
- 0
- Type
- report
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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