AGING AND INTERGENERATIONAL ASSISTANCE WITHIN FAMILIES

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DESCRIPTION: The research will investigate the flows of financial assistance between older parents and their adult children and the relationship of these flows to assistance provided by the Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI). It will examine three dimensions of intergenerational assistance: inter vivos transfers and bequests from parents to children: cash transfers from children to parents; and government assistance to the elderly. This study will provide a complete description of financial flows with analyses conducted at several levels ranging from general descriptions of the patterns in the data to structural model based estimation. A theoretical model of transfer behavior will be developed that treats inter vivos transfers and bequests as part of the same decision making process, but that allows the patterns for the two behaviors to differ. The econometric specifications employed in this estimation will take into account unobserved family differences in generosity, and unobserved differences particular to a parent-child pair. A dynamic structural model will be proposed that combines inter vivos transfers and bequests. An important component of this research will be the analysis of the interaction of familial assistance and government transfer programs. The extent to which transfers through the SSI program replace, or crowd out, familial assistance will be estimated. This result will be of use to policy makers in determining the redistributional effects of government programs. The empirical analyses will be based on the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and the Asset and Health Dynamics Survey (AHEAD). Together they provide a complete description of transfers over the latter portion of the life cycle. Four waves of each survey will be used to focus on the dynamic aspects of behavior, examining how transfers adjust to changes in the financial status of potential donors and recipients.