IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v52y2008i1p49-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income Inequality VS. Standard of Living Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Uriel Spiegel

Abstract

This paper distinguishes between income inequality and standard of living inequality. It examines the case where the utility of individuals is positively affected by a private good and a public good. We show that a wealthy individual will bear the financial burden of financing the public good, which increases the utility of the poor and reduces utility inequality. Moreover, at certain levels of inequality in income, it turns out that an individual whose share in income has decreased will not experience a reduction in utility as a result of the reduction in income. This may explain why within certain ranges of income inequality there is no attempt on the part of either the wealthy or the poor to struggle for income redistribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Uriel Spiegel, 2008. "Income Inequality VS. Standard of Living Inequality," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 52(1), pages 49-57, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:52:y:2008:i:1:p:49-57
    DOI: 10.1177/056943450805200104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943450805200104
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943450805200104?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Itaya, Jun-ichi & de Meza, David & Myles, Gareth D., 1997. "In praise of inequality: public good provision and income distribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 289-296, December.
    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. Cornes Richard & Sandler Todd, 2000. "Pareto-Improving Redistribution and Pure Public Goods," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 169-186, May.
    2. Shahateet, Mohammed & Al-Tayyeb, Saud, 2007. "Regional consumption inequalities in Jordan: Empirical study," MPRA Paper 57400, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Aulong, Stéphanie & Figuières, Charles & Thoyer, Sophie, 2011. "Agriculture production versus biodiversity protection: The impact of North-South unconditional transfers," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1499-1507, June.
    4. Jun-ichi Itaya & A.G. Schweinberger, 2006. "The public and private provision of pure public goods and the distortionary effects of income taxation: a political economy approach," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(3), pages 1023-1040, August.
    5. Agathe Rouaix & Charles Figuières & Marc Willinger, 2015. "The trade-off between welfare and equality in a public good experiment," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(3), pages 601-623, October.
    6. Alexander Karaivanov, 2009. "Heterogeneity, returns to scale, and collective action," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 771-807, May.
    7. Maaser, Nicola & Stratmann, Thomas, 2024. "Costly voting in weighted committees: The case of moral costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    8. Indraneel Dasgupta & Ravi Kanbur, 2006. "Should Egalitarians Expropriate Philanthropists?," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 06-11, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    9. Prabal Roy Chowdhury, 2007. "Alliances Among Asymmetric Countries," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 253-263.
    10. Debasis Mondal & Manash Ranjan Gupta, 2022. "Private provision of public goods: a general equilibrium analysis," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 285-300, December.
    11. Debasis Mondal & Manash Ranjan Gupta, 2023. "Private provision of public good and endogenous income inequality," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 399-425, December.
    12. Tilak Sanyal, 2016. "Pareto Improving Redistribution in the Case of Private Provision of Multiple Pure Public Goods," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 5(2), pages 220-230, December.
    13. Wojciech Olszewski & Howard Rosenthal, 2004. "Politically Determined Income Inequality and the Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(5), pages 707-735, December.
    14. Indraneel Dasgupta, 2008. "Why Praise Inequality? Public Good Provision, Income Distribution and Social Welfare," Discussion Papers 08/07, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    15. Nigar Hashimzade & Gareth D. Myles & Hana Yousefi, 2021. "Household tax evasion," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(5), pages 985-1011, October.
    16. Wolfgang Buchholz & Richard Cornes & Dirk Rübbelke, 2011. "Matching as a Cure for Underprovision of Voluntary Public Good Supply: Analysis and an Example," CESifo Working Paper Series 3374, CESifo.
    17. Jeff Dayton-Johnson & Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Inequality And Conservation On The Local Commons: A Theoretical Exercise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 577-602, July.
    18. Myles, Gareth D., 2000. "Wasteful government, tax evasion, and the provision of public goods," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 51-74, March.
    19. Kramer, Daniel Boyd & Urquhart, Gerald & Schmitt, Kristen, 2009. "Globalization and the connection of remote communities: A review of household effects and their biodiversity implications," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2897-2909, October.
    20. Martin Gregor, 2011. "Tradeoffs of foreign assistance for the weakest-link global public goods," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(2), pages 233-251, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:amerec:v:52:y:2008:i:1:p:49-57. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    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.