Economists who study data on bequests say that when people leave money to their children and grandchildren, their motives appear to be some mix of intentional and unintentional. The intentional part is what you give because you want your kids to have a certain amount of money. The unintentional part is just a random by-product of precautionary saving—someone was saving money for unexpected medical expenses, for example, but ends up dying without spending all those savings, and the kids get those financial leftovers.
