The paper investigates how comparisons of multivariate inequality can be made robust to varying the intensity of focus on the share of the population that are more relatively deprived. It follows the dominance approach to making inequality comparisons, as developed for instance by Atkinson...

In most welfare analyses, especially in the literature on normative inequality measurement, it is a commonplace to assume a direct relationship between the distribution of income and social welfare. As a result, this relationship is formally summarized by a single function, called a reduced-form...

Progress towards the MDGs is expected to slow as a consequence of the global economic downturn. This study applies an economy-wide framework to analyze the impact of the crisis on MDG achievement in six Latin American countries. It finds significant setbacks towards the goals and, in the case of...

This paper develops a methodology to estimate the entire population distributions from bin-aggregated sample data. We do this through the estimation of the parameters of mixtures of distributions that allow for maximal parametric flexibility. The statistical approach we develop enables...

We study learning in perfect competition. A representative price-taking firm sells a good whose quality is unknown to some buyers. The uninformed buyers use the price to infer information about quality. Even though the firm is a price-taker, information is disseminated though the price. It is...

In a non-market environment, there is no pressure coming from competitors that leads firms toward efficiency. Public education system is the target of many critiques as being such an example of inefficiency. Some papers attempted to measure the level of inefficiency of schools or school...

We examine the effects of different sequences of work and rest on the daily productivity of workers who planted trees in the province of British Columbia, Canada, comparing the intertemporal productivity profiles of planters who were paid either fixed wages or piece rates. We find that planters...

Dans cette étude, nous appliquons la méthode du Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) pour évaluer l’efficience en développement humain des pays de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Notre but est de voir si certains de ces pays se sont démarqués dans une bonne gestion du développement humain. Pour...

Data from a field experiment conducted within a tree-planting firm are used to estimate the gain in productivity that is realized when workers are paid piece rates rather than fixed wages. The experiment provides daily observations on individual worker productivity under both piece rates and...

We analyze a two-task work environment with risk-neutral but inequality averse individuals. For the agent employed in task 2 effort is verifiable, while in task 1 it is not. Accordingly, agent 1 receives an incentive contract which, due to his wealth constraint, leads to a rent that the other...