Empirical Facts About Transfers in Germany

Abstract

As mentioned earlier, data on private intergenerational transfers are scarce — and they are especially scarce for Germany. Nevertheless, this section attempts to provide some empirical evidence on transfer behavior in Germany. Due to data deficiencies the evidence presented is far from being conclusive. In particular, small sample sizes or lack of important explanatory variables rule out econometric testing for alternative transfer motives. The procedure is therefore to produce stylized facts and see if they more or less conform to any of the transfer motives introduced above.