What explains differences in life expectancy at age 50? This column looks at the effect of wealth, education, and marital status. It finds that by far the most important factor is education, and explores what this might mean for policy.

This column examines the impact of stock market valuation changes on consumption and investment in emerging markets. Though the effects are smaller than those in advanced economies, emerging market policymakers ought to pay attention to how equity price swings will transmit business cycles and impact aggregate demand.

A thousand years ago, Asia was ahead. Why is Europe richer now? Asia was geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion and thus benefited from enhanced assimilation, lower cultural diversity and greater accumulation of society-specific human capital; this was an edge in the agricultural stage. Greater cultural rigidity, however, diminished the ability to adapt to a new technological paradigm, delaying their industrialisation.

Inheritance tax revenues have long been declining in all OECD countries, both in terms of total revenues and GDP. This trend is explained by the secular decline of wealth inequality, and is also influenced by differential rates of tax avoidance and by the evolving composition of wealth.