馬黑註：經濟學人這篇文章有意思。

文章大意：近幾十年，繼承帶來的財富，與工作帶來的財富相比，越來越重要。人們之間經濟地位上的差別，越來越不在於工作帶來的收入有多高，而在於繼承的財富有多少。造成此現象的原因是房地產市場的繁榮帶來的房地產價值的增長，大大超過工作收入的增長，而工作收入增長的緩慢與經濟增長放緩有關。比較早趕上好時機買下房產的人發了大財，孩子繼承就成了一大筆財富。沒有繼承到父輩房產僅憑工作收入的人就買不起房子，由此帶來的經濟和社會後果就是，貧富兩級分化，富人躺平不需要奮鬥吃遺產就足夠。窮人買不起房子，難以翻身，也失去了奮鬥的動力。解決之道應該是：政府出面建造更多的房屋，讓更多的人買得起房子，發展經濟降低房價與收入的比率，增加社會流動性，好日子會回來的。

經濟學人：繼承遺產變得幾乎和工作一樣重要

日期： 2025 年 2 月 27 日

主要內容

孩子們被告知，努力工作，你就會成功。近幾十年來，這一建議對有才華和勤奮的人很有幫助。許多人已經自己發家致富，過着舒適的生活，無論他們繼承了多少錢。然而現在，繼承的財富的重要性在發達國家正在顯得越來越重要，但這也產生了問題。

發達經濟體的人們今年將繼承約 6萬億美元——約占 GDP 的 10%，高於 20 世紀中葉一些富裕國家平均約 5% 的水平。自 20 世紀 60 年代以來，法國的年度遺產流動增加了一倍，自 1970 年代以來，德國的遺產流動幾乎增加了兩倍。年輕人是否能買得起房子並過上相對舒適的生活，不僅取決於他們自己的工作成功，還取決於繼承的財富。這種轉變產生了令人震驚的經濟和社會後果，因為它不僅危及精英理想，也危及資本主義本身。

在某種程度上，繼承熱潮反映了社會變得更加富裕和老齡化。隨着經濟變得更加富裕，它們積累了人均資本——某人必須擁有的資本。但由於經濟增長步伐放緩和房地產市場繁榮，財富相對於收入的規模急劇膨脹,收入相對於積累的財富急劇縮小。這種巨額財富和長久僵化的結合在歐洲最為明顯，那裡的生產率增長一直慘澹。

更多的財富意味着嬰兒潮一代可以傳承更多的遺產。由於財富分配比收入分配更加不平等，新的繼承制正在誕生。

你可以從超級富豪的財富變化中看到這一點。在 20 世紀的大部分時間裡，巨大的財產常常因投資不當、戰爭和通貨膨脹而被破壞。據一項計算，如果1900年美國的富裕家庭被動投資股票市場，每年花費2%的財富，並擁有通常數量的孩子，那麼今天的美國將有大約16,000名通過繼承而來的億萬富翁。事實上，億萬富翁不到1000人，而且絕大多數都是白手起家。

然而，這些趨勢正在被顛覆，或許是因為億萬富翁既在積累財富，又更善於保存財富。瑞銀集團(UBS)的數據顯示，2023年，有53人通過繼承成為億萬富翁，與靠自己發家致富的84人相差不遠。這可能是因為現在很容易將財富存入指數基金，並且財富管理的原理也得到了更好的理解。此外，許多政府還強制削減遺產稅。

然而，繼承制最引人注目的一點是，它不僅僅涉及超級富豪。典型的繼承人是繼承一棟普通房屋或其出售收益的人，而不是超級遊艇或鄉村堆積物。近幾十年來，住房財富猛增，尤其是在倫敦、紐約和巴黎等頂級城市。那些有幸在長期繁榮之前購買房產的人賺了很多錢，並將意外之財傳給了他們的繼承人。因此，銀行家和公司律師現在正在為已故出租車司機遺產中的房屋展開競購戰。由於紐約和倫敦等地的住房變得越來越難以負擔，因此 90% 的人的收入已經太少，無法支付 90% 人的生活。你必須擁有大量資本——如果不是來自你父母的遺產，那麼也來自父母銀行。

如果你從整體上考慮這一點，繼承財富日益增長的重要性開始變得清晰起來。在英國，六分之一的 20 世紀 60 年代出生的人預計將獲得超過該一代十年平均年收入的遺產。對於 80 年代出生的人來說，這一比例上升至三分之一。與此同時，人們繼承的財產的不平等令人震驚。 35 至 45 歲的人中，五分之一的遺產預計將少於 10,000 英鎊（13,000 美元），而四分之一的人預計將繼承超過 280,000 英鎊。

對於自由市場的支持者來說，新繼承制的崛起應該令人深感不安。首先，它創造了一個面臨一系列不良激勵的食利階層。漏洞百出的稅收制度意味着富人花大量時間玩弄規則。繼承的財富資本最好用於更具生產力的用途，但為了保護自己的資產，房主成為鄰避者，反對建設新房屋，使那些沒有繼承財富的人買不起住房。此外，新的食利者知道他們可以依靠他們的遺產，因此可能沒有什麼動力去工作或創新。

更令人擔憂的是，非受益者的下層階級越來越落在後面，而且越來越不滿。如果房產變得越來越難買，舒適的生活越來越難實現，那麼有抱負的年輕工人的奮鬥動力就會減弱。當他們認為這個制度對他們不利時，他們對主流政黨的支持就會減弱。

這就是為什麼解決這個問題刻不容緩。如果希望通貨膨脹和戰爭像 20 世紀那樣摧毀財富，那就太瘋狂了。本報長期以來一直認為遺產稅是應對繼承制的最公平工具。然而，這些稅收如此不受歡迎，以至於各國政府不但沒有強制執行，反而引入了一個又一個漏洞，提高了徵收門檻，或者完全廢除了它們。

幸運的是，還有其他補救措施。在正確的地方建造足夠的房屋是政府為恢復工作與財富之間的關聯性可以採取的最大行動。徵收足夠的年度財產稅，特別是針對潛在土地價值的財產稅，也會有所幫助，因為該稅將被資本化為房價下跌，從而降低房價與收入的比率。歐洲迫切需要的任何促進經濟增長的舉措都會降低財富與國內生產總值的比率。精英政治的鼎盛時期帶來了社會流動性、增長和繁榮，只要稍加努力，那些日子就可以回來。

英文原文：

Inheriting is becoming nearly as important as working.

Citation metadata

Date: Feb. 27, 2025 From: The Economist

Main content

Work hard, children are told, and you will succeed. In recent decades this advice served the talented and the diligent well. Many have made their own fortunes and live comfortably, regardless of how much money they inherited. Now, however, the importance of hereditary wealth is rising around the rich world, and that is a problem.

People in advanced economies stand to inherit around $6trn this year—about 10% of GDP, up from around 5% on average in a selection of rich countries during the middle of the 20th century. As a share of output, annual inheritance flows have doubled in France since the 1960s, and nearly trebled in Germany since the 1970s. Whether a young person can afford to buy a house and live in relative comfort is determined by inherited wealth nearly as much as it is by their own success at work. This shift has alarming economic and social consequences, because it imperils not just the meritocratic ideal, but capitalism itself.

In part, the inheritance boom is a reflection of a wealthier and ageing society. As economies have become richer, they have accumulated capital per worker—capital that someone has to own. But because the pace of economic growth has slackened and housing markets have boomed, the scale of this wealth relative to incomes has ballooned. Nowhere is this combination of towering wealth and enduring sclerosis more evident than in Europe, where productivity growth has been dismal.

More wealth means more inheritance for baby-boomers to pass on. And because wealth is far more unequally distributed than income, a new inheritocracy is being born.

You can see this in the shifting fortunes of the super-rich. For much of the 20th century vast estates were often broken up by bad investing, or by war and inflation. By one calculation, if America's rich families in 1900 had invested passively in the stockmarket, spent 2% of their wealth each year and had the usual number of children, there would be about 16,000 old-money billionaires in America today. In fact, there are fewer than 1,000 billionaires and the vast majority of them are self-made.

These trends are being overturned, however, perhaps because billionaires are both amassing wealth and are better at preserving their riches. In 2023, 53 people became billionaires thanks to inheritance, not far short of the 84 who made their own fortunes, according to UBS, a bank. That may be because it is now easy to park wealth in an index fund, and the principles of wealth management are better understood. Moreover, many governments have obligingly cut inheritance taxes.

The most striking thing about the inheritocracy, though, is that it is not just about the uber-rich. The typical heir is someone inheriting a normal house, or the proceeds from its sale, not a superyacht or a country pile. And housing wealth has rocketed in recent decades, especially in apex cities like London, New York and Paris. Those who were fortunate enough to buy property before the long boom have made lots of money, passing on a windfall to their heirs. As a consequence, bankers and corporate lawyers now fight bidding wars over houses from the estates of deceased taxi drivers. As housing has become ever more unaffordable in places like New York and London, so a 90th-percentile income has become too small to pay for a 90th-percentile life. You must have significant capital, too—if not from your parents' estate, then from the Bank of Mum and Dad.

If you consider this as a whole, the growing importance of inheritance starts to become clear. In Britain one in six of those born in the 1960s is projected to receive an inheritance that exceeds ten years of average annual earnings for that generation. For those born in the 1980s, the ratio rises to one in three. The inequality of what people inherit, meanwhile, is startling. A fifth of 35- to 45-year-olds are expected to inherit less than £10,000 ($13,000), whereas a quarter are expected to inherit more than £280,000.

For supporters of free markets, the rise of the new inheritocracy should be deeply disturbing. For a start, it creates a rentier class that faces a series of bad incentives. A loophole-ridden tax system means that the wealthy spend a lot of time gaming the rules; it would be better used to direct their capital to more productive uses instead. To protect their assets, homeowners become nimbys, blocking building and making housing unaffordable for those without inherited wealth. Knowing they can rely on their inheritance, moreover, the new rentiers may face little incentive to work or innovate.

More worrying still is how an underclass of non-beneficiaries is becoming increasingly left behind—and increasingly disaffected. If property becomes ever harder to buy, and a comfortable life harder to achieve, the incentive of young, aspirational workers to strive will be blunted. And when they believe that the system is stacked against them, their support for mainstream political parties withers.

That is why fixing the problem is urgent. It would be mad to wish that inflation and war destroy fortunes, as they did in the 20th century. This newspaper has long argued that inheritance taxes are the fairest tool to deal with inheritocracy. Yet the taxes are so unpopular that, instead of enforcing them, governments have introduced loophole after loophole, raised the threshold at which they apply, or dismantled them altogether.

Fortunately, there are other remedies. Building enough houses in the right place is the single biggest action governments can take to restore the link between work and wealth. Levying sufficient annual property taxes, especially those that target underlying land values, would also help, because the tax would be capitalised as a fall in house prices, bringing down house-price-to-income ratios. And anything that boosts economic growth, so desperately needed in Europe, would bring down wealth-to-GDP ratios. The heyday of meritocracy brought with it social mobility, growth and prosperity. With a little hard work, those days can return.