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Lifetime Receipt of Inheritances and the Distribution of Wealth in England
Author(s) -
Crawford Rowena,
Hood Andrew
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
fiscal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1475-5890
pISSN - 0143-5671
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-5890.2016.12087
Subject(s) - receipt , pension , wealth distribution , economics , distribution (mathematics) , national wealth , gini coefficient , distribution of wealth , work (physics) , labour economics , inequality , finance , economic inequality , accounting , mathematical analysis , mathematics , mechanical engineering , engineering
We investigate the impact of inheritances and gifts received on the distribution of wealth. Whereas previous work has looked only at marketable wealth, we consider broader measures of wealth including state and private pensions. We find that once pension wealth is included, inheritances and gifts no longer have an equalising impact on the distribution of wealth. Without pension wealth, including wealth transfers reduces the Gini coefficient for wealth from 0.57 to 0.52. With pension wealth, the impact is negligible. We argue that this latter effect gives a better indication of the impact of inheritances on the distribution of lifetime income.