This note extends the Duclos Esteban Ray Polarization Measure to situations in which agents are characterized in many dimensions where the characteristics are both discrete and continuous. It provides a formula for its asymptotic variance and illustrates its use in an application to a sample of...

This paper explores some difficulties encountered in multidimensional measures of wellbeing. In particular, it highlights the need for such indices to (i) incorporate information on individual preferences, (ii) be robust with respect to estimation assumptions given the 'curse of dimensionality'...

Poverty measurement and the analysis of the progress (or otherwise) of the poor is beset with difficulties and controversies surrounding the definition of a poverty line or frontier. Here, using ideas from the partial identification literature and mixture models, a new approach to poverty...

The problem considered here is that of dealing with the "incompleteness" property of Stochastic Dominance Orderings by quantifying the extent to which distributions differ when there is no dominant distribution at a given order. For example consider a policymaker's choice problem when facing a...

Classifying agents into subgroups in order to measure the plight of the "poor", "middle class" or "rich" is common place in economics, unfortunately the definition of class boundaries is contentious and beset with problems. Here a technique based on mixture models is proposed for surmounting...

Economic and Social Welfare is inherently multidimensional. However choosing a measure which combines several indicators is difficult and may have unintended and undesireable effects on the incentives for policymakers. We develope a nonparametric empirical method for deriving welfare rankings...

Underlying the unresolved debate over whether the gap between rich and poor country GNP per capita has narrowed is a concern for wellbeing. The issue is really about the changing shapes of distributions of wellbeing indicators. As limiting cases con- vergence between rich and poor country groups...

One of the central issues in welfare economics is the measurement of overall wellbeing and, to this end, the interaction between institutions (polity) and growth is paramount. Individual welfare depends on both economic and political factors but the continuous nature of economic variables...

Aphorisms that “Rising tides raise all boats” or that material advances of the rich eventually “Trickle Down” to the poor are really maxims regarding the nature of stochastic processes that underlay the income paths of groups of individuals. This paper looks at the implications of...

The Chinese government implemented the One Child Policy (OCP) in an attempt to ameliorate the population explosion and its potential negative economic consequences on their infant economy in 1979. Here the consequences of this policy for marital matching and family size decisions are examined. A...