Shaping intergenerational relationships: the demonstration effect

Mohamed Jellal (1) , François-Charles Wolff (2)

1 UM5 - Université Mohammed V de Rabat [Agdal]
2 LEN - Laboratoire d'économie de Nantes

According to the demonstration effect theory, parents make intergenerational transfers to their elders in order to elicit a symmetric future behavior from their children. In this paper we show that upstream transfers are expected to increase with low returns from alternative financial assets and with the donor's life expectancy. The latter effect creates a greater incentive for daughters to care for parents.

Mots clés: Intergenerational transfer Demonstration effect Imitation JEL classification: D10 J10; Intergenerational transfer; Demonstration effect; Imitation JEL classification: D10; J10

Domaines: Économie et finance quantitative [q-fin]

Mohamed Jellal, François-Charles Wolff. Shaping intergenerational relationships: the demonstration effect. Economics Letters, 2000, 68 (3), pp.255-261. ⟨10.1016/S0165-1765(00)00247-0⟩. ⟨hal-03913003⟩