Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP6111
Authors: Eliana La Ferrara
Abstract: Traditional descent systems can roughly be divided into patrilineal and matrilineal. In the latter, a man?s heir is not his own child but rather his sister?s son. The paper examines the implications of this social norm for the pattern of inter-vivos transfers using household level data from rural Ghana, where the largest ethnic group is traditionally matrilineal. In particular, it tests the predictions of a model of strategic behaviour according to which children should respond to the threat of disinheritance by increasing transfers to their parents during lifetime to induce a donation of land before the default (matrilineal) inheritance is enforced. I find that the credibility of customary norms enforcement, as proxied by the presence of a nephew in the father?s household, significantly increases the probability of receiving transfers from children for Akans but not for other groups. The effect is specific to nephews and not to other co-resident boys. This pattern of behaviour can affect asset accumulation decisions across generations.
Keywords: inter vivos transfers; matrilineal inheritance; social norms; strategic bequests
JEL Codes: O16; O17
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| presence of a nephew in the father's household (J12) | likelihood of receiving transfers from children for Akan households (D15) |
| presence of a nephew in the father's household (J12) | likelihood of receiving transfers from children for non-Akan households (D15) |
| matrilineal inheritance (J12) | transfer behaviors (F16) |
| enforcement of matrilineal norms (J12) | strategic transfer decisions of children (J62) |