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A New Cross-Country Measure of Material Wellbeing and Inequality: Methodology, Construction and Results

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  • Arthur Grimes

    (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)

  • Sean Hyland

    (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)

Abstract

This paper advances a new framework for defining a country’s material wellbeing based on the distribution of consumer durables, building on the recent material wellbeing literature that calls for an increased focus on both the level and the distribution of consumption and wealth. Our framework is demonstrated using household-level data from the OECD PISA surveys, from which triennial metrics are constructed consistently for 40 countries since 2000. Comparisons with income-based alternative metrics suggest that our consumption-based measure captures important aspects of material wellbeing at both the micro and the macro level. Differences between the two approaches is shown to be associated with life-cycle smoothing, an important aspect that should be captured in material wellbeing estimates.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur Grimes & Sean Hyland, 2015. "A New Cross-Country Measure of Material Wellbeing and Inequality: Methodology, Construction and Results," Working Papers 15_09, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtu:wpaper:15_09
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Arthur Grimes & Sean Hyland, 2020. "Measuring cross‐country material wellbeing and inequality using consumer durables," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(3), pages 248-271, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Material wellbeing; quality of life; national accounts; cross-country analysis; distributions; inequality; household durables.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

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