Intergenerational Transmission Models: A Survey

Abstract

Exchanges and transfers within families are very specific. They may concern money (as with inter vivos gifts or inheritances), without being selling or buying, help and services, such as child-care or loans; they may or may not have market substitutes (the case is clear for affection and caring). Either the exchange is not perceived as such (I give to my children, without thinking that they might ever give back), or it is very indirect (I marry a public servant ‘in order to’ mitigate our income variability, myself being an entrepreneur); there is usually no written contract, as would be the case with market insurance, for example (my parents invest in my education; I shall give back by helping them when they are old), and one is even far from barter (I receive a present; the rule is that I do not give back immediately but later and differently).

There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made of a cluster of appurtenances. (Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, ch. 19, 1881)

Thanks are due to Luc Arrondel, Alessandro Cigno and Daniel Verger for their comments. Help from Guy Laroque and Isabelle Lemaire is very gratefully acknowledged. Errors are mine.