When comparing economic well-being using income or expenditures, an equivalence scale is often used to adjust for differences in characteristics that affect needs. For example, a family of two is assumed to need more income than a single person, but not twice as much due to the economies of...

Income inequality can be measured at different levels of aggregation such as global, continental, international and national levels. Here we consider income inequality at the national level but the focus is on the within country regional inequality. Regional inequality in income distribution in...

We apply the collective consumption model of Browning, Chiappori and Lewbel (2006) to analyse economic well-being and poverty among the elderly. The model focuses on individual preferences, a consumption technology that captures the economies of scale of living in a couple, and a sharing rule...

We propose a new methodology to estimate the share of household income accruing to children (i.e., the cost of children). Following the principle of the Rothbarth approach, the identification of the children's share requires the observation of at least one adult-specific good. However, our...

We apply an extension of the Rothbarth approach to estimate the share of household resources accruing to children (i.e., the cost of children) in Ireland. The method also allows us to identify the economies of scale in the household and indifference scales in Lewbel (2003)’s sense. A practical...

We use income satisfaction data in order to estimate equivalence scales. Our method differs from previous attempts to use satisfaction data for this purpose in that it can be used to estimate or evaluate any given parametric equivalence scale. It can also be employed to investigate specific...

This paper addresses the apparent paradox between widespread support of cattle farming by agricultural policy interventions and negative returns to cattle as stressed in recent works. Using a representative panel dataset for Andhra Pradesh, a state in the south of India, we examine average and...

The structure of a family may have important consequences for the material well-being of its members. For example, in large families, an individual must share resources with many others, but she may benefit from economies of scale in consumption. In this paper, we study individual consumption in...