This paper proposes a comprehensive, path-independent decomposition formula of changes into ceteris paribus effects and interaction effects. The formula implies a reassessment of sequential decomposition methods that are widely used in the literature and that are restrictive in how they treat...

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...

How do individuals shape societies? How do societies shape individuals? This paper develops a framework for studying the connections between micro and macro phenomena. The framework builds on two ingredients widely used in social science − population and variable. Starting with the simplest...

The last three decades the accumulation of quantitative research evidence has led to the development of systematic methods for combining information across samples of related studies. Although a few methods have been described for accumulating research evidence over time, meta-analysis is widely...

In this paper, we develop and numerically solve a model of idiosyncratic labour income and idiosyncratic interest rates to predict the evolution of a wealth distribution over time. Stochastic labour income follows a deterministic growth trend and it fluctuates between a wage and unemployment...

Understanding the exact connection between inequality and justice is important because justice is classically regarded as the first line of defense against self-interest and inequality. Absent a strong and clear link between inequality and justice, the sense of justice would not awaken to exert...

This paper develops the mathematical foundations of comparison, referential, and relative (CRR) processes. The key ingredients are: (1) three kinds of terms; and (2) two kinds of relations. Combining the three terms - absolute amount, relative amount, and relative rank - with the two kinds of...

Social scientists study two kinds of inequality: inequality between persons (as in income inequality) and inequality between subgroups (as in racial inequality). This paper analyzes the mathematical connections between the two kinds of inequality. The paper proceeds by exploring a set of...

The goal of scientific work is to understand more and more by less and less. In this effort, theoretical unification plays a large part. There are two main types of theoretical unification - unification of different theories of the same field of phenomena and unification of theories of different...

Recent work on social status led to derivation of a new continuous distribution based on the exponential. The new variate, termed the ring(2)-exponential, in turn leads to derivation of two closely-related new families of continuous distributions, which we call the mirror-exponential and the...