Primogeniture
基于人类学对长子继承制的研究，作者构建了一个Becker-Barro型王朝模型，表明长子继承制可能是家族首领为最小化灭绝概率的最优策略。遗产分配受社会内在流动性结构影响，不平等分配虽扩大代内不平等，但可能增强代际向上流动性，从而降低稳态收入不平等。
On the basis of anthropologists' area-specific research of primogeniture, the author proposes a Becker-Barro type of dynastic model in which primogeniture may emerge as family heads' optimal policy to minimize their respective lineal extinction probability. The author shows that parents' bequest division will be affected by the intrinsic mobility structure of the society, contrary to previous causality conjecture. Although an unequal division of bequests widens the within-generation inequality, it may increase the intergenerational upward mobility for the well-endowed child, which in turn improves the originally rigid upward mobility of the poor and middle-income groups and, as a result, reduces the steady-state income inequality. Copyright 1991 by University of Chicago Press.