As the world debates the economic crisis, it does so without considering two historically important ideas: the stigmatization of miserliness and the prohibition of usury. Although these ideas were once keystones of society, they are missing from the current discourse. This paper seeks to...

This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

This paper explains how to build Lorenz Curves for income distributions and discusses their use for inequality measurement. A short conceptual background, a step-by-step procedure and a simple numerical example illustrate how to calculate and draw Lorenz Curves. A discussion on the use of Lorenz...

This paper illustrates how Lorenz Curves can be used to identify the best income distribution on social welfare grounds, within a set of alternative income distributions generated by different policy options. After highlighting some drawbacks of using specific functional forms of the Social...

This paper illustrates how Crossing Generalised Lorenz (GL) curves can be used to identify the best income distribution on social welfare grounds within a set of alternative income distributions generated by different policy options. It starts by illustrating two alternative income distributions...

A comparison of the 2007-08 crisis with that of 1929 showed its extreme gravity, but it also may have implied that the old harmful mistakes would not be repeated. After four years, the crisis has not been solved and it even threatens to worsen. Neo-conservative Republicans claim that this is...

In this document we may find the main characteristics about the food security situation in the Mesoamerican countries. The insufficient nourishment and nutrition, as well the poverty condition that involve an important proportion of the Central American and Mexican population, produce and human...

In November 2007, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued quot;Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship - A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States.quot; This statement by the American Catholic Bishops provides guidance to Catholic voters on how...

This has been developed from the keynote speech of the inaugural Cambridge Capabilities Conference held in 2016 (a similar version is to be published in Anand, P.B., Comim, F.V. and Fennell, S. (eds), [provisional title] 'New Frontiers of the Capability Approach', forthcoming from Cambridge...