An Economic Analysis of Inheritance System : From a Perspective of Law and Public Choice Theory

本文首先从法经济学、公共选择理论、公平正义理论等角度对日本的继承法律制度进行了分析，然后规划出最优的继承法律制度。我们重点讲了继承法、信托、捐赠、遗嘱、无遗嘱继承等。继承是财富分配的一种形式。但是有很多东西可以从父母那里继承给孩子，比如财产，这通常是继承法所涵盖的，才能和健康。从资源配置、财产或财富分配和法律制度执行的角度来看，我国现行的继承法制度并不理想。我国民法典继承法对遗嘱、无遗嘱继承有许多技术性规定，对遗产分割也有许多程序。在遗嘱中，法律规定了对遗嘱歧义的纠正和对遗嘱不完整的补充。即使在作为继承法默认规则的无遗嘱继承中，民法也为继承人之间的财富分配提供了标准，从而降低了继承人之间分割和分配遗产的交易成本。在规划最优继承法律体系时，应对我国继承法的成本进行估算。遗产税因其矫正社会畸形的伦理功能而被证明是合理的。在这一点上，应该利用社会正义、分配正义和道德价值来证明遗产税的合理性。现代设备如高等教育和医疗保险等从替代方式向现代“继承”。这些规避了继承法和对财产使用的限制，以及遗产税。

We, first, analyzed the inheritance law system in Japan from the law and economics and public choice theory, and fairness and justice, and secondly, planned the optimal law system of inheritance. We focused on the inheritance law, trust, donation, wills, and intestate succession and so on.Inheritance is one of forms of wealth distribution. But there are many things to be succeeded from parents to their children, such as property, which usually inheritance law covers, talent, and health. Our present system of inheritance law is not optimal from the point of view of resource allocations, distribution of property or wealth, and enforcement of the legal system.Our inheritance law in the Civil Code has many technical rules governing the wills, the intestate inheritance, and many procedures to divide estate. In the wills, the law offers the rules correcting the ambiguities and supplementing the incompleteness of the testator's wills. Even in the intestate succession, which is the default rules of the inheritance law, the Civil Law provides the standard of the wealth distribution among the heirs and, thus they reduces the transaction cost in dividing and distributing estates among them. This cost aspect of our succession law should be estimated in planning the optimal inheritance law system.Inheritance taxation has been justified for ethical its function of the correction of societal deformity. In this point, social justice, distributive justice, and moral values should be employed to justify the inheritance taxation. Modern devices such as higher education and health insurance and so on from the alternatives to modem "inheritance". These circumvent the inheritance law and restrictions on the use of property, and inheritance taxation.