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In December, while the world's attention was on the emergence of the omicron coronavirus variant, the German Institute for Economic Research revived a centuries-old idea to help tackle wealth inequality.

Universal Basic Inheritance, or Grunderbe in German, would assign €20,000 ($22,720) to each resident upon reaching 18 years of age. The sum would be earmarked to pay for education or training, a property downpayment or for starting a business -- not to be squandered.

The idea is in a similar vein to the Universal Basic Income, a welfare replacement scheme being trialed by governments around the world, which awards people a minimum monthly income without being means-tested.

"If we really want to create prosperity for everyone in the foreseeable future, then we should reduce the high level of wealth inequality through redistribution; by giving the non-asset owning half of the population a basic inheritance," the German think tank's tax expert Stefan Bach wrote in his proposal.

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