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Death and Dollars

The Role of Gifts and Bequests in America
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This volume explores the reasons people in the US save money, how they decide to allocate their wealth once they retire and how givers select their beneficiaries. It also assesses the extent to which the estate tax and annuitization of retirement wealth affects the amount and nature of wealth transfers. Finally, it looks at the impact of bequests on the economy. The first section summarizes existing knowledge and puts the current US experience in perspective by offering first an historical view and then an international view. The second section explores the reasons for wealth transfers and how givers select their beneficiaries. The contributors consider whether bequests are left by accident or on purpose, how people decide between philanthropic organizations and family and who gets the bequest within a family. In the third section, the discussion shifts from the inner workings of the household to external factors that affect bequests - namely, taxes and benefits. The final section looks at the impact of wealth transfers on the amount of aggregate saving and capital accumulation and on the distribution of wealth among households.
Alicia H. Munnell is the Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences at Boston College's Carroll School of Management and director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. A former member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, she has written or edited numerous books, including Com ing Up Short:The Challenge of 401(k) Plans, with Annika Sunden (Brookings, 2004). Annika Sunden is a research associate at Boston College.
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