I never heard about the 3rd generation rule before. But searching it seems to lead only to anecdotal reports, hearsay and a Chinese saying / belief. The curren

I never heard about the 3rd generation rule before. But searching it seems to lead only to anecdotal reports, hearsay and a Chinese saying / belief. The current litterature seems to suggest that on the contrary wealth easily pass down generations. The recent book Capital in the 21 century by Piketti is one of the largest analysis of wealth distribution based on tax data in most western countries for the last century. Two economists from the bank of Italy went even further and analysed tax data up to 1427 in Florence. They found that "The top earners among the current taxpayers were found to have already been at the top of the socioeconomic ladder six centuries ago." So it seems that the data suggest that the third generation rule might only be a way for rich people to teach their kid to be careful with their wealth don't you think? If you have more data I would gladly read about it.