Leveling the Playing Field: How Inheritance Laws Structure Wealth Inequality Within and Across Welfare Capitalist Regimes, 1995-2020

Davison, Innes Taylor

Leveling the Playing Field: How Inheritance Laws Structure Wealth Inequality Within and Across Welfare Capitalist Regimes, 1995-2020

dc.contributor.advisor	Curtis, Joshua Patterson
dc.contributor.author	Davison, Innes Taylor
dc.contributor.committeemember	Godley, Jenny
dc.contributor.committeemember	Tedds, Lindsay Melissa
dc.date	2024-02
dc.date.accessioned	2023-11-01T19:27:01Z
dc.date.available	2023-11-01T19:27:01Z
dc.date.issued	2023-10-30
dc.description.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.
dc.identifier.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.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/117503
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	inheritance
dc.subject	inheritance laws
dc.subject	wealth inequality
dc.subject	income inequality
dc.subject	social welfare capitalism
dc.subject	deemed disposition
dc.subject	regime theory
dc.subject.classification	Education--Finance
dc.subject.classification	Education--Social Sciences
dc.subject.classification	Education--Sociology of
dc.subject.classification	Economics--History
dc.subject.classification	Social Structure and Development
dc.title	Leveling the Playing Field: How Inheritance Laws Structure Wealth Inequality Within and Across Welfare Capitalist Regimes, 1995-2020
dc.type	master thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Sociology
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Master of Arts (MA)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.