Arguing with Gary Becker about the economics of the family is a risky strategy at best, but when I read this:

Virtually all studies show that children brought up in intact families do better at school, and have fewer drug and delinquency problems, than do children whose parents divorced or never married. However, that evidence alone does not tell us whether or not children of divorced parents would have done poorly even if their parents had stayed together, perhaps because parental fighting creates an unpleasant atmosphere. Good evidence on the effects of divorced parents on children is much more elusive, but the limited material available confirms that divorce makes children worse off.

I couldn’t help respond:

What evidence do you have in mind? I’ve always regarded the two best studies on this topic as Bj[radical]?rklund, Ginther and Sundstr[radical]?m (2006) and Piketty (2003). Both have clever ways of dealing with the selection problem, and both find approximately zero impact of marriage on kids.

11:15:21 AM    

I’m sure people who are more tax-savvy than me have been thinking about this for a while, but it just occurred to me.

Unlike virtually all OECD countries, Australia has no inheritance tax, and we do not tax realised capital gains at death. Which means that if you have a share portfolio that you know you plan to hold for a decade, and an trustworthy grandmother who you expect to pass away in about a decade, then you should give your share portfolio to your grandmother. When she passes away a decade later, she wills you the portfolio, and you get its full value, without having to pay any capital gains tax.¬[sgl dagger]

So while American tax planners spend their time trying to work out clever ways of giving away¬[sgl dagger]the estate before death, their Australian counterparts are presumably doing the opposite.

11:14:14 AM