A complete system of consumer expenditure functions with 28 commodity groups is modelled and estimated by means of Norwegian household panel data. Measurement errors are carefully modelled. Total consumption expenditure is modelled as a latent variable, purchase expenditures on different goods...

Benefit incidence analysis is an extremely popular tool to assess the distribution of benefits from government expenditure in developing countries, particularly in the social sectors. The analysis describes the welfare impact of public spending on groups of people or households, typically along...

Most analysts of the modern Latin American economy hold to a pessimistic belief in historical persistence -- they believe that Latin America has always had very high levels of inequality, suggesting it will be hard for modern social policy to create a more egalitarian society. This paper argues...

This paper examines different approaches to the measurement of multidimensional inequality and poverty. First, it outlines three aspects preliminary to any multidimensional study: the selection of the relevant dimensions; the indicators used to measure them; and the procedures for their...

A review of the theoretical literature on optimal indirect taxation reveals that analytical arguments in favor of uniform indirect taxation seem weak and rather unrealistic; hence determining the optimal tax structure remains an empirical issue. However, reviewing the empirical contributions...

This paper is concerned with the distribution of income and the problem of choosing summary measures of inequality for empirical applications. By introducing a simple transformation of the Lorenz curve one is led to three measures of inequality, which jointly prove to represent a fairly good...

The effects on the degree of equality of reforms in indirect taxation are analysed by using a microsimulation model of the Norwegian economy subsequent to a CGE model. The two main reforms studied are substitution of a uniform VAT rate on all goods and services and substitution of the...

The purpose of this paper is to justify the use of the Gini coefficient and two close relatives for summarizing the basic information of inequality in distributions of income. To this end we employ a specific transformation of the Lorenz curve, the scaled conditional mean curve, rather than the...

This article studies how a firm fosters formal and informal interaction among its employees to create a collective identity and positively influence their effort. We develop an agency model, in which employees have both a personal and a social ideal for effort. The firm does not observe the...

This paper provides a rationale for equal sharing in heterogeneous partnerships. We introduce project choice and information sharing to a standard team production setting. A team with two agents can choose whether they want to work on a status quo project or on an alternative project. If the...