This article investigates the relationship between inheritance and wealth in the context of eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu. Based on the estate inventories of the deceased (sing. tereke) as recorded in Kastamonu court records (sicils), the article introduces a variety of quantitative techniques to measure the impact of Islamic inheritance practices on wealth accumulation across subsequent...

This paper shows how the degree of credit-market imperfections affects the steady-state distributions of income and wealth, human capital investment, and the pattern of comparative advantage. The impact of trade liberalization on the accumulation of human capital depends on how it affects (1) the incentives to accumulate human capital, (2) the borrowing constraints facing human capital accumula...

Many low-income households in rich countries have very little wealth, but the role of intergenerational wealth transmission underpinning this deficit is not known. This article seeks to fill that gap by investigating patterns past transfer receipt for versus other seven and assessing contribution these transfers, or their absence, make current levels. We find on low incomes are relatively disad...

The natural log and categorical transformations commonly applied to wealth for meeting the statistical assumptions of research may not always be appropriate for adjusting for skewness given wealth's unique properties. Finding and applying appropriate transformations is becoming increasingly important as researchers consider wealth as a predictor of well-being. We present an alternative transfor...

How did the wartime health of Union Army recruits affect their wealth accumulation through 1870? Wounds and exposure to combat had strong negative effects on subsequent savings, as did illnesses while in the service. The impact of poor health was particularly strong for unskilled workers. Health was a powerful determinant of nineteenth-century economic mobility. Infectious diseases' influences ...

In this paper we examine the scope of cross-country variation in institutions related to social insurance. Building on the variation we find we assess the value of new micro data that is comparable across countries to help identify key parameters of individual behavior. We present multiple aspects of labor force participation, including disability benefit receipt, as well as wealth accumulation...

If Adam Smith were asked about transitioning and developing economies today, one may infer, he might suggest introducing small, yet constant, opportunities for wealth accumulation, avoiding the sudden accumulation of riches. Good institutions and the moral rules often needed to complywith them are more likely to be disregarded if there are large, suddenmaterial gains, such as new wealth...

This paper proposes a growth model of heterogeneous households with economic structure, wealth accumulation, endogenous labour supply, and tax rates. The paper is focused on effects of redistribution policies on income and wealth distribution, economic structure and economic growth. The paper integrates the Walrasian general equilibrium theory and neoclassical economic growth within a comprehen...