points on the fibers of a double point degeneration. This equation resembles a computation
of such Euler characteristics via a combinatorial inclusion–exclusion principle. As a
consequence, we show the existence of universal polynomials for the Euler characteristics
of tautological sheaves on the Hilbert scheme of points on smooth proper algebraic spaces.
We apply this result to a conjecture of Zhou on tautological sheaves on Hilbert schemes of …