On comparing heterogeneous populations: Is there really a conflict between welfarism and a concern for greater equality in living standards?
✍ Scribed by Bart Capéau; Erwin Ooghe
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2007
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 341 KB
- Volume
- 53
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0165-4896
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The standard solution in classical welfare analysis to deal with non-pecuniary characteristics relevant for a normative judgement of income distributions, such as household composition or handicaps, is to adjust first household income via equivalence scales. The resulting equivalent income is then assigned to each household member. Finally, a social evaluation tool is applied to the resulting distribution of individual equivalent incomes (as if all individuals were homogeneous). However, the welfarist approach of the final step risks to be at odds with a concern for greater equality in equivalent incomes (see [