Social status pursuit, distribution of bequests and inequality

Abstract

The quest for social status modifies lifetime decisions and as a consequence, the trajectory of the overall economy. Focusing on the relative wealth dimension of social status, we build a two-period overlapping generations model with heterogeneous agents to investigate the effects of status quest on the evolution of bequest distribution and household inequality. We show that the bequest motive and the concern for social status not only increase the stationary level of capital but also enhance the household equality.