Most cross-country comparisons of living standards focus on real Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person. These measures provide no variance in living standards within the nation, nor do they account for the amount of real incomes that families actually...

We analyze the impact of the state on the incidence of poverty in the working-age population of 14 advanced capitalist democracies between 1970 and 1997 using an unbalanced panel design. We utilize poverty measures based on micro-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study in conjunction with...