There is growing support for the idea that global income poverty should be assessed with a measure accounting for both own income and relative income. The trade-off that such a measure makes between own income and relative income is the key question. Non-paternalism requires that this trade-off...

There is growing support for using global income poverty measures that account for both own income and relative income. The World Bank has adopted a global line that depends on both. Unfortunately, with preference heterogeneity over own and relative income, the standard poverty indices are not...

This paper studies the optimal taxation of bequests in a model in which agents have heterogeneous preferences over their consumption and the net-of-tax bequest received by their heir. The bequest left by an individual depends on both her degree of altruism and the bequest received from her...

Absolute poverty lines aim to track a fixed poverty standard consistently. There are two main approaches for the construction of absolute poverty lines. The "welfaristic" approach tracks a fixed level of utility, and the "objective" approach tracks a fixed list of achievements. As they yield...

This paper surveys the small branch of welfare economics that studies indicators combining poverty and mortality. The paper distinguishes two reasons for constructing such indicators. The first reason is to perform multidimensional well-being comparisons. For this purpose, mortality has...