Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, to compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby to reduce asymmetric information. Permitting risk classification may reduce informational asymmetry-induced...

The poverty impact of indirect tax reforms is analyzed using sequential stochastic dominance methods. This allows agents to differ in dimensions that cannot always be precisely captured within the usual money-metric indicators of living standards. Examples of such dimensions include household...

This paper proposes graphical methods to determine whether commodity-tax changes are "socially improving", in the sense of improving social welfare or decreasing poverty for large classes of social welfare and poverty indices. It also derives estimators of critical poverty lines and economic...

This paper analyzes the definition of economic efficiency. The standard definition used in economic literature is the Pareto Optimum which is based in the space of individual utilities. This paper proposes new definitions based on alternative spaces. The paper also introduces a dominance...

Polygyny is an institution with deep roots in West Africa. Many papers have attempted to explain the rationality and persistence of this phenomenon through time. Less effort has been devoted to studying the effect of polygyny on household economic behavior. This question is policy relevant given...