TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hurd,Michael D.
AU  - Mundaca,B. Gabriela
TI  - The Importance of Gifts and Inheritances Among the Affluent
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2415
PY  - 1987
Y2  - October 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2415
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2415.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael D. Hurd
RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407
Tel: 310/451-6945
Fax: 310/451-6923
E-Mail: mhurd@rand.org

B. Gabriela Mundaca
University of Oslo
P.B. 1095 Blindern
0317 Oslo NORWAY
E-Mail: gabrielamundaca@verizon.net
M1  - published as Michael D. Hurd, B. Gabriela Mundaca. "The Importance of Gifts and Inheritances Among the Affluent," in Robert E. Lipsey and Helen Stone Tice, editors, "The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth" University of Chicago Press, 1989 (1989)

AB  - Using data from the 1964 Survey of the Economic Behavior of the Affluent, we estimate directly the fraction of household assets which come from inheritances and the fraction from gifts. These data are well suited for this calculation because the survey is heavily weighted toward households with high incomes, and because the respondents were directly asked about the sources of their wealth. We estimate that 15-202 of household wealth came from inheritances and 5-102 from gifts. Even in households with very high incomes, very few people say that a large fraction of their assets were inherited or were given to them. According to the responses in this survey, it is not creditable that as much as 50% of household assets came from gifts and inheritances. Using data from the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances with high income supplement, we roughly confirm the 1964 results, although the 1983 data are much less complete than the 1964 data.
ER  -