At age 6 nobody receives any bequests because the parent is at age 11 and is going to die for certain.
Higher persistence is associated with larger (absolute) tax elasticities, even if the model allows for altruistic bequests.
This is valid in the case where the couple's motivations for leaving a bequest are altruistic.
But this is not clear since younger individuals who receive bequests would have a lower demand for precautionary saving.
Here we consider exclusively the utility deriving from possible bequests once death has occurred.
A longer life span yields smaller unintentional bequests and thus lowers the level of the young agents' wealth.
Agents differ in age, ability, earnings shocks, and inherited bequests.
As new medical technologies sent expenses on an upward spiral, small provincial hospitals, largely funded by small private bequests, could not keep up.
