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. 2021 Jul 28;16(7):e0254492.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254492. eCollection 2021.

The last will: Estate divisions as a testament of to whom altruism is directed

Mikael Elinder  1   2 , Per Engström  1 , Oscar Erixson  3
Affiliations

The last will: Estate divisions as a testament of to whom altruism is directed

Mikael Elinder et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

We use data on estate divisions to study to whom altruistic preferences are directed. Insofar bequests are given without the prospect of future personal benefits in mind, they are presumably intrinsically motivated. Hence, estate divisions provide a rare opportunity to study intrinsically motivated prosocial behavior in the field. The empirical analysis is based on data from digitized estate reports for all individuals in Sweden who passed away in 2002 and 2003. The data show in detail how the decedents distributed their bequests. We find that family members, both genetic (offspring) and non-genetic (partner), receive the lion's share of the estates. Other relatives, friends and strangers (represented by charities) receive only very small shares of the total estate wealth. The results suggest that intrinsically motivated altruism is primarily directed towards close family members.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Division of estates in the full study population.
The bars are accompanied by 99% confidence intervals.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Division of estates by decedents with close family.
The bars are accompanied by 99% confidence intervals.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Division of estates by decedents without close family but with other relatives.
The bars are accompanied by 99% confidence intervals.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Division of estates by decedents without close family or other relatives.
The bars are accompanied by 99% confidence intervals.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Division of estates by decedents with close family.
The bars are accompanied by 99% confidence intervals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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Publication types

Grants and funding

All three have been funded by a research grant from Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser, Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius stiftelse (P2015:0147:1), one of the major Swedish grant givers. Website: https://www.handelsbanken.se/shb/inet/IStartSv.nsf/FrameSet?OpenView&id=Forskningsstiftelserna In addition, PE has also been partly funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR 446-2013-8058). Website: https://www.vr.se/english.html. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.