Bridging the wealth gap

The idea of a Universal Inheritance (UI) has been recently gaining weight amongst scholars concerned over increasing wealth inequality. A UI consists of a one-off public payment of an agreed sum to each citizen of young adulthood. In this article, we provide the results of novel simulations to asses...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Vidal, Guillem, Thiemann, Andreas, Salazar, Leire, Noguera, Jose A.|||0000-0003-0263-8908
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Recursos:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:uabarcelona_::f6920e12455eb2828a3e42e4ac2c42e8
Acesso em linha:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/327440
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1177/09589287241311147
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Universal Inheritance
Wealth
Inequality
Simulation
Redistribution
Policy
Descrição
Resumo:The idea of a Universal Inheritance (UI) has been recently gaining weight amongst scholars concerned over increasing wealth inequality. A UI consists of a one-off public payment of an agreed sum to each citizen of young adulthood. In this article, we provide the results of novel simulations to assess the cost and the distributive impact of such policy by testing different parameters for both the benefit amount and its financing. The simulations run on a top-tail adjusted version of the Household Financial Consumption Survey covering four countries: Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Italy. We find that, under some parameters, a UI would significantly reduce inequality and could be realistically financed by taxing the top 1%.