Aspirations, Habit Formation, and Bequest Motive
分析个人基于过去消费形成的习惯和基于父母生活水平的抱负如何影响遗赠动机，发现习惯减少遗赠意愿，而抱负则促进正遗赠。
We consider an economy where individuals use their standard of living based on past consumption in order to evaluate the utility arising from current consumption. We analyse how this process of preference formation affects the bequest motive. We show that habits (based on one's own past consumption) reduce the willingness of individuals to leave bequests, while aspirations (based on the standard of living of parents) make the existence of positive bequests easier. The long-run effects of both habits and aspirations on capital stock and on the amount of bequests depend on whether or not the bequest motive is operative. Copyright 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2007.