Vegetarian diets have been around for hundreds of years, but the practice has only been adopted more widely in the last 50 years. It is estimated that in the UK, between 3 and 7% of the population are vegetarian and women are more likely to be vegetarian than men.
There are many interpretations of a 'vegetarian’ diet, ranging from avoiding red meat most of the time through to a strict vegan diet, where all foods of animal origin are excluded. In an omnivorous (meat-containing) diet, animal-derived foods like meat, fish, eggs and dairy products normally provide substantial amounts of food energy, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, vitamins A, D and B 12 . Nutritional status is at risk when appropriate substitutions are not made for any group of foods that is omitted from the diet, for whatever reason.
There is a large literature which documents a significant increase in wage inequality from 1980 to 2000 (Katz & Autor, 1999). The growth in wage gap between high school and college graduates has been particularly large, at 21%. Since wage income is a large contributor to a householdks economic well being, it is tempting to view income inequality as a measure of welfare inequality. During this time period, there has been sharp changes in the relative distribution of college graduates and lower skill workers across metropolitan areas in the US. For example, the share of the working population living in Boston who have a college degree has increased 17 percentage points during this 30 year time span.
Investors face both dividend taxes and capital gains taxes. Dividend taxes are incurred when corporations make cash distributions to shareholders, and capital gains taxes are incurred when securities are sold. From recent data, Sialm (2006) estimates that 55% of U. S. equity is held in a taxable account. Even though the majority of equity is subject to taxation, the finance literature has not produced any after-tax stock indices. This paper considers the direct impact of both types of taxation on various portfolio strategies. Our calculations assume realistic optimizing tax-realization strategies, with the highest-basis shares of given companies sold before lower-basis shares. Our results provide new evidence on the impact of investment taxation on investment performance. Contrary to the view that dividend yield is a sufficient statistic for measuring tax burden, we find that capital gains tax-timing options induce differences in tax burdens that are related to portfolio style and composition method.
