IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jecinq/v2y2004i3p193-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inequality and welfare evaluation of heterogeneous income distributions

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Shorrocks

Abstract

This paper establishes the principles that should govern the welfare and inequality analysis of heterogeneous income distributions. Two basic criteria – the ‘equity preference’ condition and the ‘compensation principle’ – are shown to be fundamentally incompatible. The paper favours the latter, thereby vindicating the traditional method of dealing with heterogeneous samples. However, inequality and welfare comparisons will usually be well defined only if equivalent incomes are obtained using constant scale factors; and researchers will need to distinguish clearly between inequality of nominal incomes and inequality of living standards. Furthermore, household observations must always be weighted according to family size. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Shorrocks, 2004. "Inequality and welfare evaluation of heterogeneous income distributions," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(3), pages 193-218, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jecinq:v:2:y:2004:i:3:p:193-218
    DOI: 10.1007/s10888-004-3459-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10888-004-3459-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10888-004-3459-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin W. S. Roberts, 1980. "Interpersonal Comparability and Social Choice Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(2), pages 421-439.
    2. Fleurbaey, Marc & Hagnere, Cyrille & Trannoy, Alain, 2003. "Welfare comparisons with bounded equivalence scales," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 309-336, June.
    3. Trannoy, Alain, 2003. "About the right weights of the social welfare function when needs differ," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 383-387, December.
    4. Timothy Smeeding & Gunther Schmaus & Brigitte Buhmann & Lee Rainwater, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using the LIS Database," LIS Working papers 17, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Coulter, Fiona A E & Cowell, Frank A & Jenkins, Stephen P, 1992. "Differences in Needs and Assessment of Income Distributions," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 77-124, April.
    6. Pendakur, Krishna, 1998. "Semiparametric estimates and tests of base-independent equivalence scales," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-40, November.
    7. Ebert, Udo, 1997. "Social Welfare When Needs Differ: An Axiomatic Approach," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 64(254), pages 233-244, May.
    8. Glewwe, Paul, 1991. "Household equivalence scales and the measurement of inequality : Transfers from the poor to the rich could decrease inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 211-216, March.
    9. Udo Ebert & Patrick Moyes, 2003. "Equivalence Scales Reconsidered," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 319-343, January.
    10. Stephen P. Jenkins & Peter J. Lambert, 1993. "Ranking Income Distributions When Needs Differ," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(4), pages 337-356, December.
    11. Lazear, Edward P & Michael, Robert T, 1986. "Estimating the Personal Distribution of Income with Adjustment for Within-Family Variation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 216-239, July.
    12. Jenkins, Stephen P & Lambert, Peter J, 1993. "Ranking Income Distributions When Needs Differ," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(4), pages 337-356, December.
    13. A. B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon, 1982. "The Comparison of Multi-Dimensioned Distributions of Economic Status," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(2), pages 183-201.
    14. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1983. "Ranking Income Distributions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(197), pages 3-17, February.
    15. Ok, Efe A. & Lambert, Peter J., 1999. "On evaluating social welfare by sequential generalized Lorenz dominance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 45-53, April.
    16. Brigitte Buhmann & Lee Rainwater & Guenther Schmaus & Timothy M. Smeeding, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well‐Being, Inequality, And Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using The Luxembourg Income Study (Lis) Database," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 34(2), pages 115-142, June.
    17. Serge-Christophe Kolm, 1977. "Multidimensional Egalitarianisms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(1), pages 1-13.
    18. Lewbel, Arthur, 1989. "Household equivalence scales and welfare comparisons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 377-391, August.
    19. Buhmann, Brigitte, et al, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality, and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates across Ten Countries Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 34(2), pages 115-142, June.
    20. Danziger, Sheldon & Taussig, Michael K, 1979. "The Income Unit and the Anatomy of Income Distribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 25(4), pages 365-375, December.
    21. Nelson, Julie A, 1993. "Household Equivalence Scales: Theory versus Policy?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 471-493, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Comparisons of heterogeneous distributions and dominance criteria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1351-1383.
    2. Udo Ebert & Patrick Moyes, 2017. "Inequality and isoelastic equivalence scales: restrictions and implications," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 295-326, February.
    3. Patrick Moyes & Stephen Bazen, 2003. "International Comparisons of Income Distribution," LIS Working papers 341, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Cowell, Frank & Mercader-Prats, Magda, 1999. "Equivalence scales and inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2190, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Yadira Diaz, 2015. "Differences in needs and multidimensional deprivation measurement," Working Papers 387, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    6. Udo Ebert & Patrick Moyes, 2009. "Household decisions and equivalence scales," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 1039-1062, October.
    7. Udo Ebert, 2010. "Dominance criteria for welfare comparisons: using equivalent income to describe differences in needs," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(1), pages 55-67, July.
    8. Peter J. Lambert & Xavier Ramos, 2001. "Welfare comparisons: sequential procedures for heterogenous population," Working Papers wp0114, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    9. Christian Dudel & Jan Marvin Garbuszus & Notburga Ott & Martin Werding, 2015. "Income Dependent Equivalence Scales, Inequality, and Poverty," CESifo Working Paper Series 5568, CESifo.
    10. Nancy Folbre & Marta Murray-Close & Jooyeoun Suh, 2018. "Equivalence scales for extended income in the U.S," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 189-227, June.
    11. Capeau, Bart & Ooghe, Erwin, 2007. "On comparing heterogeneous populations: Is there really a conflict between welfarism and a concern for greater equality in living standards?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-28, January.
    12. John Creedy & Cath Sleeman, 2005. "Adult equivalence scales, inequality and poverty," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 51-81.
    13. Gravel, Nicolas & Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Ethically robust comparisons of bidimensional distributions with an ordinal attribute," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1384-1426.
    14. John Creedy & Catherine Sleeman, 2004. "Adult Equivalence Scales, Inequality and Poverty in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/21, New Zealand Treasury.
    15. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2013. "Utilitarianism or welfarism: does it make a difference?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 529-551, February.
    16. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2011. "Bidimensional Inequalities with an Ordinal Variable," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: Marc Fleurbaey & Maurice Salles & John A. Weymark (ed.), Social Ethics and Normative Economics, pages 101-127, Springer.
    17. Ooghe, Erwin, 2007. "Sequential dominance and weighted utilitarianism," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 208-212, February.
    18. Sunil Kumar & Renuka Mahadevan, 2008. "Construction of An Adult Equivalence Index to Measure Intra-household Inequality and Poverty: Case Study," Discussion Papers Series 363, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    19. Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 1995. "Income distribution and social welfare: a review essay," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 19(1), pages 3-34, January.
    20. Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 1994. "The evolution of the standard of living in Spain, 1973-74 to 1980-81," UC3M Working papers. Economics 2909, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jecinq:v:2:y:2004:i:3:p:193-218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.