Leveling the Playing Field: How Inheritance Laws Structure Wealth Inequality Within and Across Welfare Capitalist Regimes, 1995-2020
Date
2023-10-30
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Abstract
Using Esping-Andersen’s welfare capitalism regimes as a template, as well as data from the Luxembourg Wealth Study (1995-2020), this thesis analyzes the degree to which wealth inequality exists cross-nationally, the forms that inheritance laws take, and what effect receiving an inheritance has on wealth disparities both within and across regimes. More specifically this research shows how and why inheritance policies at the household level within regimes are more effective at reducing wealth inequality. These findings are used to argue for the integration of inheritance policy into regime theory as an additional mechanism for explaining within-regime country-level similarities in terms of policy structure and its ensuing social and economic outcomes. These conclusions were based on a series of OLS and logistic country fixed effects models that explore the impact of inheritance on wealth accumulation within and across liberal, conservative, and social democratic welfare state regimes. These analyses are supplemented by analyzing whether receiving an inheritance leads to the expectation that a household will, in turn, provide an inheritance. Thus, as my research shows, the passing of intergenerational wealth strongly impacts the net worth of families across all wealth deciles and perpetuates structural inequality in the present as well for future generations. This underscores the effect inheritance has on both national and household-level wealth, thereby reinforcing the need for more social stratification and policy-driven research on the impact of inheritance on economic inequality.
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inheritance, inheritance laws, wealth inequality, income inequality, social welfare capitalism, deemed disposition, regime theory
Citation
Davison, I. T. (2023). Leveling the playing field: how inheritance laws structure wealth inequality within and across welfare capitalist regimes, 1995-2020 (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.