We describe Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to welfare evaluationin the language of standard welfare economics, and assess to what extentit provides a genuine alternative for individual welfare measurement andpolicy evaluation. We review the nascent empirical literature on the...

The Lisbon summit of the European Council in March 2000 declared the number ofpeople living in poverty and social exclusion in the European Union to beunacceptable, and called for steps to tackle the issue, beginning with the setting oftargets for particular indicators. The targets suggested...

The concept of social exclusion has been widely debated in Europe butits application to children has seen relatively little discussion. What couldbe meant by exclusion of children is the first main theme of the paper.Among other things, I consider the choice of reference group, thegeographical...

[...]This paper, and its companion, Definition of equality and framework formeasurement: Final Recommendations of the Equalities Review SteeringGroup on Measurement (CASEpaper 120) were prepared as backgroundpapers to assist in the development of the measurement framework for theEqualities...

[...]This paper, and its companion, Developing a Capability List: FinalRecommendations of the Equalities Review Steering Group on Measurement(CASEpaper 121), were prepared as background papers to assist in thedevelopment of the measurement framework for the Equalities Review. Itdiscusses the...

The Equalities Review is an independent panel set up by the UK government in2005 to investigate the persistence of social inequalities and to makerecommendations for the development of a unified Commission for Equalityand Human Rights. This paper was originally written for the Review....

This study analyses the development of the economic well-being of the elderly in Swedensince 1990 - a period characterized by increased influence from the financial market andextreme economic events - using data from the Household Income Survey. The elderly werenot isolated as pensions were cut,...

The paper analyzes the incidence, the severity and the determinants of household poverty inUkraine during transition using two comparable surveys from 1996 and 2004. We measurepoverty using income and consumption and contrast the effects of various poverty lines...

To assess the impact of tax-benefit policy changes on income distribution over time, wesuggest a methodology based on counterfactual simulations. We start by decomposingchanges in inequality/poverty indices into three contributions: reforms of the tax-benefitstructure (rules, rates, etc.),...

The Polish tax and benefit system is presented in the context of a recently developedmicrosimulation model, SIMPL. The model allows simulating direct taxes, social contributionsand public benefits in Poland for the years 2003 and 2005...>br>