Fair inheritance taxation

We study the optimal taxation of bequests in a version of the model of Piketty and Saez (2013). Agents have heterogeneous preferences over their consumption and the net-of-tax bequest received by their heir. The bequest left by an individual depends on both her degree of altruism and the bequest received from her parents. First, we study two principles at the heart of the debates on taxing inheritances: 1) children should not be penalized by the lack of altruism of their parents; 2) parents should be free to choose their bequests. Only one social welfare function (SWF) satisfies these two principles, together with Pareto efficiency and a separability principle. Second, we study the shape of the inheritance tax scheme that maximizes this SWF. We show that, in the aggregate, the inheritance tax must collect money (redistributed through a non-negative demogrant). Moreover, small bequests cannot be taxed (they can potentially be subsidized), while bequests larger than that of the most altruistic individuals who did not receive bequests from their parents should be taxed as much as efficiency permits

Income poverty measures with relative poverty lines

I derive poverty indices taking into account both the absolute and relative aspects of income well-being. The trade-off made by the social planner between those two aspects is captured at individual level by a well-being ordering. This ordering evaluates the well-being of an agent based on her income and a reference statistic on the income distribution, typically the mean. A family of poverty indices respecting the judgements held in the ordering is axiomatically characterized. Then, I study the consequences of requiring the poverty indices to grant a minimal precedence to the absolute over the relative aspect of income well-being. This compelling requirement has strong implications. In particular, the Poverty Gap Ratio is the only index in the popular Foster-Greer-Thorbecke family to satisfy it

A Criterion to Compare Mechanisms When Solutions Are Not Unique, with Applications to Constrained School Choice

We introduce a new criterion to compare the properties of mechanisms when the solution concept used induces multiple solutions. Our criterion generalizes previous approaches in the literature. We use our criterion to compare the stability of constrained versions of the Boston (BOS) and deferred acceptance (DA) school choice mechanisms in which students can only rank a subset of the schools they could potentially access. When students play a Nash equilibrium, we show that there is a stability cost to increasing the number of schools students can rank in DA. On the other hand, when students only play undominated strategies, increasing the number of schools students can rank increases stability. We find similar results for BOS. We also compare BOS and DA. Whatever the number of schools students can rank, we find that BOS is more stable than DA in Nash equilibrium, but less stable in undominated strategies

Death and destitution: the global distribution of welfare losses from the COVID-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about massive declines in wellbeing around the world. This paper seeks to quantify and compare two important components of those losses – increased mortality and higher poverty – using years of human life as a common metric. We estimate that almost 20 million life-years were lost to Covid-19 by December 2020. Over the same period and by the most conservative definition, over 120 million additional years were spent in poverty because of the pandemic. The mortality burden, whether estimated in lives or in years of life lost, increases sharply with GDP per capita. The poverty burden, on the contrary, declines with per capita national incomes when a constant absolute poverty line is used, or is uncorrelated with national incomes when a more relative approach is taken to poverty lines. In both cases the poverty burden of the pandemic, relative to the mortality burden, is much higher for poor countries. The distribution of aggregate welfare losses – combining mortality and poverty and expressed in terms of life-years – depends both on the choice of poverty line(s) and on the relative weights placed on mortality and poverty. With a constant absolute poverty line and a relatively low welfare weight on mortality, poorer countries are found to bear a greater welfare loss from the pandemic. When poverty lines are set differently for poor, middle and high-income countries and/or a greater welfare weight is placed on mortality, upper-middle and rich countries suffer the most

Clinical evaluation of a lead mobilization test using the chelating agent dimercaptosuccinic acid.

BACKGROUND: The lead mobilization test reflects the mobilizable and likely toxicologically active fraction of the lead body burden. We propose a safe and convenient protocol for this test, to assess concomitant copper and zinc excretion and to determine the size of the chelatable lead pool in nonoccupationally exposed adults. METHODS: The study population included 80 white adults: 40 controls [median blood lead concentration (PbB), 25 microg/L] and 40 lead-exposed individuals (315 microg/L). After collection of 4- and 24-h baseline urine specimens and a blood sample, dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) was administered orally (1 g), and additional 4- and 24-h urine specimens were obtained. Determinants of the chelatable urinary lead (DMSA-PbU) were traced by linear regression analysis. RESULTS: Urinary DMSA and lead excretion peaked within 2-3 h after DMSA administration. The amounts of DMSA, lead, copper, and zinc recovered in the 4-h urinary collections were highly correlated with those in 24-h collections (r = 0.857, 0.859, 0.958, and 0.757, respectively). At PbB concentrations >300 microg/L, the relationship between DMSA-PbU and PbB showed a steep increase and a widespread dispersion of DMSA-PbU around the regression line. After DMSA, copper and zinc excretion rates were increased up to 91- and 33-fold, respectively. No side effects were reported after DMSA. CONCLUSIONS: Determination of DMSA-PbU in a 4-h collection after DMSA is convenient, apparently safe, and inexpensive. An upper reference limit value of 22 microg/4 h is proposed for Belgian reference individuals. The diagnostic value of DMSA-PbU is likely to be contributive for PbB >300 microg/L