Becker and Posner on inheritances

I admit it: I usually keep Profs. Becker and Posner around my RSS reader just to class the joint up a bit. Rare is the time I can actually set aside twenty minutes to read and digest both’s views on an issue. Today’s post, though, was one of them: “Should Dogs Get $8 Billion from the Helmsley Estate?” (Becker’s response here). I’d love to see a behavioral economist’s evaluation of Posner’s assumption that “bequest motives are a significant force in motivating people to earn money,” but that’s my neophyte’s response to a lot of law and econ. If nothing else, perhaps proponents of inheritance reform can now answer the “death tax” neologism with one of their own: the “dog tax.”