Altruism and Self-Restraint

We address the issue of altruism when standard-of-living aspirations are transmitted from one generation to the other. In that case, the influence of altruistic parents is not limited to the bequest they could leave; indeed, they direct the evolution of children’s aspirations toward raising their utility by restraining their own consumption standard. We show that, even if there is no bequest, altruism always increases capital accumulation and has a stabilizing effect on the economy. However, its effect on steady state welfare can be negative. In an example nesting the Barro-Weil model, bequests can be positive even if this is never the case in the Barro-Weil economy. It is possible for an economy to experience regime shifts along the convergence path to the steady state