Piketty (2010) found for France that the flow of inter vivos gifts and inheritances also came down sharply from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s. Particularly the stock market boom in the late 1990s has driven up wealth concentration at the top. At least in France, inheritances and inter vivos gifts have risen again in importance over the past 30 years and stood at 15% of national income in 2008, nearly as high as a century ago (Piketty, 2008). Gift and inheritance taxes influence the wealth distribution.