Many historians now reject quantitative methods as inappropriate to understanding past societies. It is argued here, however, that no sharp distinction between qualitative and quantitative concepts can be drawn, as almost any concept used to describe a past society is implicitly quantitative....

This paper focuses on survey expectations and discusses their uses for testing and modeling of expectations. Alternative models of expectations formation are reviewed and the importance of allowing for heterogeneity of expectations is emphasized. A weak form of the rational expectations...

In an article published in Development and Change in 2011, I suggested an alternative measure of inequality to the Gini - a "19th Century statistic" - which has subsequently become known as the ´Palma Ratio'. In this new article, I revisit the argument for such a measure. Using new data, I...

This paper explores the implications of examining the effect of policy changes on individual incomes rather than household incomes.

The South African government has set as a policy objective the halving of poverty by 2014, although the meaning of this goal has not yet been defined. This article frames government’s stated target of halving poverty by 2014 in terms of specific measures of the poverty gap and poverty...

No voters cast their votes based on perfect information, but better educated and richer voters are on average better informed than others. We develop a model where the voting mistakes resulting from low political knowledge reduce the weight of poor voters, and cause parties to choose political...

A Citizen's Pension (CP) is a Citizen's Income for older people, payable on an individual basis to citizens, regardless of gender, current or past employment or marital status, living arrangements or income. A particular advantage of a CP at an adequate level is that it has the potential to lift...