Born with a Silver Spoon?: Danish Evidence on Wealth Inequality in Childhood

Simon Halphen Boserup; Wojciech Kopczuk; Claus Thustrup Kreiner

doi:10.1111/ecoj.12496

Born with a Silver Spoon? Danish Evidence on Wealth Inequality in Childhood

Simon Halphen Boserup, Wojciech Kopczuk, Claus Thustrup Kreiner

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We use Danish wealth records from three decades to characterise wealth inequality in childhood, where the main source of wealth is transfers. Wealth holdings are small in childhood but they have strong predictive power for future wealth in adulthood. At age 18, asset holdings of children are more informative than parental wealth in predicting wealth of children when they are in their 40s. We investigate why and rule out that childhood wealth in itself can accumulate enough to explain later wealth inequality. Instead, childhood wealth seems to proxy for intergenerational correlation in savings behaviour and additional transfers from parents.

Original language	English
Journal	The Economic Journal
Volume	128
Issue number	612
Pages (from-to)	F514-F544
Number of pages	31
ISSN	0013-0133
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12496
Publication status	Published - Jul 2018

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10.1111/ecoj.12496

Wealth Inequality: The Role of Inheritance and Taxation of Wealth: Postdoctoral scholarship funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research DFF - 1329-00046
Boserup, S. H. (Participant)
1 Oct 2013 → 30 Jun 2016
Activity: Other activity types › Other (prizes, external teaching and other activities) - Other

Cite this

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abstract = "We use Danish wealth records from three decades to characterise wealth inequality in childhood, where the main source of wealth is transfers. Wealth holdings are small in childhood but they have strong predictive power for future wealth in adulthood. At age 18, asset holdings of children are more informative than parental wealth in predicting wealth of children when they are in their 40s. We investigate why and rule out that childhood wealth in itself can accumulate enough to explain later wealth inequality. Instead, childhood wealth seems to proxy for intergenerational correlation in savings behaviour and additional transfers from parents.",

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Born with a Silver Spoon? Danish Evidence on Wealth Inequality in Childhood

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Activities

Wealth Inequality: The Role of Inheritance and Taxation of Wealth: Postdoctoral scholarship funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research DFF - 1329-00046

Cite this