The relevance of inheritances and gifts in absolute and relative terms

Private wealth is a crucial factor for the economic well-being of households. Key determinants of private wealth include intergenerational wealth transfers (gifts and inheritances), which are gaining importance since 1990, as research suggests. We conduct a detailed investigation of the distribution of wealth transfers in eight Euro-area countries. First, we investigate the patterns of prevalence and level of past wealth transfers in the individual countries: Who received transfers, and what is their present value in absolute terms? We find that in most countries the percentages of households with a transfer as well as the mean present value of those transfers is increasing along the distribution of net wealth. Using a series of country-specific multivariate regressions, we find that households with higher income and education levels have both a higher probability of receiving transfers and higher absolute transfer value. We then analyze the present value of transfers as a percent of current net worth. Here, in relative terms, some of the results are reversed, as the relative importance of intergenerational transfers does not increase with the level of wealth or income. Using a fractional logit regression we conclude that for higher income quintiles the share of current net worth due to past intergenerational transfers tends to be decreasing

eine Verteilungsanalyse

Wir gehen der Frage nach, ob die gegenwärtige Vermögensungleichheit in Deutschland auf eine Dominanz von Erbschaften im oberen Bereich der Verteilung zurückzuführen ist. Auf Basis der PHF‐Daten finden wir, dass die Vermögen der Deutschen zu etwa zwei Dritteln auf Eigenleistung und zu etwa einem Drittel auf Erbschaft zurückgehen. Diese Proportion verändert sich entlang der Vermögensverteilung wenig. Insbesondere nimmt die relative Bedeutung von Erbschaften mit zunehmendem Privatvermögen nicht systematisch zu. Diese Ergebnisse sind robust hinsichtlich unterschiedlicher Altersgruppen, Vermögensdefinitionen und Kapitalisierungsmethoden für die unteren 99 %.This paper investigates the role of inheritance in the distribution of wealth in Germany. Recently collected survey data allow us to compute inheritance‐wealth ratios for various quantiles based on several assumptions concerning the capitalization of past bequests and gifts. Our results indicate that wealth inequality below the top‐1% is hardly affected by inheritances: the share of inheritances in wealth is about one third on average and it does not change much across quantiles of the wealth distribution. A number of robustness checks confirm the validity of this finding

Data-An Empiricist’s Guide

Survey data tends to be biased toward the middle class. Often it fails to adequately cover the highly relevant group of multi-millionaires and billionaires, which in turn results in biased estimates for aggregate wealth and top wealth shares. In order to overcome the under coverage and obtain more reliable measurements of wealth inequality, researchers are simulating the top tail of wealth distributions using Pareto distributions both with and without information on high-net-worth-individuals from rich lists. In a series of Monte Carlo experiments, this study analyzes what assumptions need to be fulfilled in order for such an exercise to yield reliable results. If survey weights are uninformed about the relationship between non-response and wealth, as is to be expected empirically, the former case will underestimate top wealth shares and the latter may overestimate it, while both methods yield estimates of aggregate wealth that are still inherently biased downwards. In an application using German survey wealth data, it is shown that re-weighting the provided frequency weights based on exogenous information possibly affects the estimates more severely than choosing the right parameters of the Pareto distribution. However, empirically the three separate assumptions on the non- response yield wildly different estimates.The validity of exogenous dataâand the rich list dataâremains a matter of trust on the part of the empiricist

an International Comparison

We use data from the European Household Finance and Consumption Survey in order to examine the distributional effect of intergenerational wealth transfers on the net worth distribution in 8 European countries and compare it to recent findings for the US. To do so, we resort to the decomposition of the coefficient of variation as suggested and applied by Wolff (1987, 2002, 2015) and Wolff and Gittleman (2014). The results hint that inheritances and gifts have a vastly equalizing effect on inequality in household wealth in all 8 countries

MM-Stat – MultiMedia-Statistik: Statistische Datenanalyse – webbasiert, interaktiv und multimedial

In der Vergangenheit wurden viele (interaktive) Lehrmaterialien auf proprietären Plattformen entwickelt. Mit den Web 2.0 Technologien bieten sich neue interaktive und technische Möglichkeiten der Darstellung dieser Lehrinhalte auf einer standardisierten Plattform an. Existierende und neue Lehrinhalte im Bereich Statistik, sowohl aus dem Grund- als auch aus dem Hauptstudium, wurden in ein Wiki (http://www.mm-stat.org) übertragen bzw. erstellt. In das frei editierbare Wiki wurden Videos, Aufgaben, Bewertungsfunktionen und Softwareprogramme eingebettet.E-learning, MM-Stat, Wiki, Web 2.0, Open Access

Coherent X-ray Scattering Reveals Nanoscale Fluctuations in Hydrated Proteins

Hydrated proteins undergo a transition in the deeply supercooled regime, which is attributed to rapid changes in hydration water and protein structural dynamics. Here, we investigate the nanoscale stress relaxation in hydrated lysozyme proteins stimulated and probed by X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS). This approach allows us to access the nanoscale dynamic response in the deeply supercooled regime (T = 180 K) which is typically not accessible through equilibrium methods. The relaxation time constants exhibit Arrhenius temperature dependence upon cooling with a minimum in the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts exponent at T = 227 K. The observed minimum is attributed to an increase in dynamical heterogeneity, which coincides with enhanced fluctuations observed in the two-time correlation functions and a maximum in the dynamic susceptibility quantified by the normalised variance $\chi_T$. Our study provides new insights into X-ray stimulated stress relaxation and the underlying mechanisms behind spatio-temporal fluctuations in biological granular materials

Understanding, diagnosing, and treating Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome - State of the art: Report of the 2nd international meeting at the Charité fatigue center.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a devastating disease affecting millions of people worldwide. Due to the 2019 pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we are facing a significant increase of ME/CFS prevalence. On May 11th to 12th, 2023, the second international ME/CFS conference of the Charité Fatigue Center was held in Berlin, Germany, focusing on pathomechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment. During the two-day conference, more than 100 researchers from various research fields met on-site and over 700 attendees participated online to discuss the state of the art and novel findings in this field. Key topics from the conference included: the role of the immune system, dysfunction of endothelial and autonomic nervous system, and viral reactivation. Furthermore, there were presentations on innovative diagnostic measures and assessments for this complex disease, cutting-edge treatment approaches, and clinical studies. Despite the increased public attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent rise of Long COVID-19 cases, and the rise of funding opportunities to unravel the pathomechanisms underlying ME/CFS, this severe disease remains highly underresearched. Future adequately funded research efforts are needed to further explore the disease etiology and to identify diagnostic markers and targeted therapies