On the Measurement of Inequality
TL;DR: In this paper, the problem of comparing two frequency distributions f(u) of an attribute y which for convenience I shall refer to as income is defined as a risk in the theory of decision-making under uncertainty.
About: This article is published in Journal of Economic Theory.The article was published on 1970-09-01. It has received 5002 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Income inequality metrics & Income distribution.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate a neoclassical household labor supply model for married individuals, incorporating the main elements of the tax system, using Italian microdata, and use these results to measure the behavioral and welfare effects of alternative tax systems: the actual tax system where the unit of taxation is the individual, joint family taxation; and a flat tax.
Abstract: In this research we estimate a neoclassical household labor supply model for married individuals, incorporating the main elements of the tax system, using Italian microdata. We found that while the labor supply of women is rather elastic with respect to wages and income variation, men's labor supply is inelastic with respect to variation in both. We use these results to measure the behavioral and welfare effects of alternative tax systems: the actual tax system, where the unit of taxation is the individual; joint family taxation; and a flat tax. The simulation results show that relative to the actual system the joint tax implies a higher average social cost but is more equally distributed. The flat tax implies a lower social cost but is less equally distributed.
82 citations
Cites background from "On the Measurement of Inequality"
...where EVe = S EVi/N, and EV* is such that (Atkinson 1970):...
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01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: The Handbook of Taxation for Developing Countries as mentioned in this paper was written primarily for economists who are responsible for analyzing and evaluating economic policies of developing countries at an applied level, and who would benefit from a comprehensive discussion of the concepts, principles, and prevailing issues of taxation.
Abstract: This Handbook was written primarily for economists who are responsible for analyzing and evaluating economic policies of developing countries at an applied level, and who would benefit from a comprehensive discussion of the concepts, principles, and prevailing issues of taxation. Reprinted in 1999.
82 citations
TL;DR: This paper investigated whether changes in the overall distribution of income can be attributed to social policy measures and found a possible relationship between changing welfare state policies (as measured by expenditure ratios and replacement rates) and changing income inequality.
Abstract: In most OECD-countries income inequality has increased during the last two decades. In this paper, we investigate whether changes in the overall distribution of income can be attributed to social policy measures. For most (but not all) countries we find a possible relationship between changing welfare state policies (as measured by expenditure ratios and replacement rates) and changing income inequality. Especially the United Kingdom and the Netherlands combined an above-average rise in inequality with a reduction in the generosity of the welfare system.
82 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take the recent philosophical debate on equality versus priority as the starting point, and review these claims from the point of view of an economist, and show that the intersection approach faces deep problems, and that the numbers should not count within an egalitarian framework.
Abstract: Over the years, egalitarian philosophers have made some challenging claims about the nature of egalitarianism. They have argued that egalitarian reasoning should make us reject the Pareto principle; that the Rawlsian leximin principle is not an egalitarian idea; that the Pigou–Dalton principle needs modification; that the intersection approach faces deep problems; that the numbers should not count within an egalitarian framework, and that egalitarianism should make us reject the property of transitivity in normative reasoning. In this paper, taking the recent philosophical debate on equality versus priority as the starting point, I review these claims from the point of view of an economist.
82 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the effects of growth on poor incomes based on a comparison of growth rates for two standards of living: the ordinary mean and a bottom-sensitive general mean and find that the incomes of the poor do not grow one-for-one with increases in average income.
Abstract: In this paper we propose the use of an alternative methodology to track low incomes based on Atkinson's (1970) family of "equally distributed equivalent income" functions, which are called "general means" here. We provide a new characterization of general means that justifies their use in this context. Our method of evaluating the effects of growth on poor incomes is based on a comparison of growth rates for two standards of living: the ordinary mean and a bottom-sensitive general mean. The motivating question is: To what extent is growth in the ordinary mean accompanied by growth in the general mean? A key indicator in this approach is the growth elasticity of the general mean, or the percentage change in the general mean over the percentage change in the usual mean. Our empirical analysis estimates this growth elasticity for a data set containing 144 household surveys from 20 countries over the last quarter century. Among other results, we find that the growth elasticity of bottom sensitive general means is positive, but significantly smaller than one. This suggests that the incomes of the poor do not grow one-for-one with increases in average income.
82 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, a measure of risk aversion in the small, the risk premium or insurance premium for an arbitrary risk, and a natural concept of decreasing risk aversion are discussed and related to one another.
Abstract: This paper concerns utility functions for money. A measure of risk aversion in the small, the risk premium or insurance premium for an arbitrary risk, and a natural concept of decreasing risk aversion are discussed and related to one another. Risks are also considered as a proportion of total assets.
5,207 citations
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"On the Measurement of Inequality" refers background in this paper
...3 See Rothschild and Stiglitz [13], Hadar and Russell [ 5 ], and Hanoch and Levy [6]....
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1,738 citations
"On the Measurement of Inequality" refers methods in this paper
...Then by applying the results of Pratt [l 11, Arrow [ 2 ], and others, we can see that this requirement (which may be referred to as constant (relative) inequality-aversion) implies that U(y) has the form...
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1,544 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of the first step of the decision-making process of an individual decision maker among alternative risky ventures is presented, in terms of a single dimension such as money, both for the utility functions and for the probability distributions.
Abstract: Publisher Summary The choice of an individual decision maker among alternative risky ventures may be regarded as a two-step procedure. The decision maker chooses an efficient set among all available portfolios, independently of his tastes or preferences. Then, the decision maker applies individual preferences to this set to choose the desired portfolio. The subject of this chapter is the analysis of the first step. It deals with optimal selection rules that minimize the efficient set by discarding any portfolio that is inefficient in the sense that it is inferior to a member of the efficient set, from point of view of each and every individual, when all individuals' utility functions are assumed to be of a given general class of admissible functions. The analysis presented in the chapter is carried out in terms of a single dimension such as money, both for the utility functions and for the probability distributions. However, the results may easily be extended, with minor changes in the theorems and the proofs, to the multivariate case. The chapter explains a necessary and sufficient condition for efficiency, when no further restrictions are imposed on the utility functions. It presents proofs of the optimal efficiency criterion in the presence of general risk aversion, that is, for concave utility functions.
1,160 citations