Thomas Piketty, Gabriel Zucman
The proposal of wealth taxation is coming back, in response to rising public debts and to the increase in inequality in Western countries, following the work by Piketty and Zucman (2014). Studies (Knoll et al. 2014, Bonnet et al. 2014) have made the three striking observations:
The housing component of national private wealth is explained by the spectacular rise of wealth relative to national income in several countries.
Housing wealth as the sum of two elements – structures and developed land – is mostly driven by the rise in housing prices.
Rising land values can explain most of the trends in the UK and in France.
Laurence Ball
The crisis has left deep scars, which will affect both supply and demand for many years to come.
Blanchard (2012)
The Covid-19 pandemic in the US has led to volumes of initial claims for unemployment and unemployment rates not seen since the Great Depression period, pushing the economy into a recession. As policymakers map out potential recovery paths, much of the debate tends to focus on short-run and medium-run implications. Can we hope for a ‘V-shaped’ rebound, at least once vaccines have been widely distributed, or will it take a long time between economic decline and subsequent recovery akin to a ‘U-shaped’ rebound or worse (Baldwin and di Mauro 2020, An and Loungani 2020)? What has received less attention are the potential long-run implications. History tells us that economic crises like the current one can alter consumer behaviour in the long-run – beyond the effects captured by standard economic variables such as current employment and employment p
Jeffrey Clemens, Parker Rogers
The public and political pressure on vaccine developers and global regulatory approval agencies has never been higher. The world has been eagerly awaiting any – and all – developments regarding vaccines and therapeutics required to fight the current Covid-19 pandemic. While the demand side is willing to pay almost any price for an effective and fast solution, unfortunately neither the drug development nor the drug approval process is designed to deliver speed and safety free of trade-offs.
The dilemma faced by the regulators is simple. If regulators rush their review, they may end up approving a drug without adequately understanding its efficacy and safety, leaving room for unforeseen side-effects. These include safety issues around the drug itself, along with treatment dangers such as unsafe dosages and failing to highlight potentially dangerous drug interactions. Yet if regulators endeavour to understand all possible scenarios, it may take an
Lance Lochner
Children from well-off families are healthier than poor children. The positive connection between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s health has been documented in a large number of studies from different countries (for an overview, see Currie 2009). The connection is not limited to childhood. The positive correlation between family resources and health continues through a child’s adult years and translates into higher mortality rates for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds (Palme and Sandgren 2008). It may also be an important element for understanding the general education gradient in health and health inequality in a society (e.g. Currie et al. 2018, Lochner 2011, or Janke et al. 2020).
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IMAGE: New research co-written by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign experts Tatyana Deryugina and Benjamin M. Marx finds that charitable giving in the aftermath of catastrophic tornadoes doesn t necessarily crowd out donations. view more
Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Charitable donations account for about 2% of gross domestic product in the U.S., but it s not well-understood whether an event such as a deadly storm inspires increases in charitable giving or simply reallocates a fixed supply of donation dollars that would have otherwise gone to another cause.
A new paper from a team of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign experts finds that, in the aftermath of catastrophic tornadoes, charitable giving to alleviate an unanticipated event doesn t necessarily crowd out monetary donations to other causes.