Income variablity reduces social welfare if individuals are risk averse, and it is likely to increase inequality if poorer households are more vulnerable to shocks. Using a simple method to estimate risk-adjusted measures of inequality and welfare and wage data from Mexico, this note shows that...

The Gini income elasticity has been used to assess the impact of marginal proportional changes in income from a given source on inequality in total income. This note extends the methodology to take into account income variability.

Using household data from five successive national surveys, the author analyzes the microdeterminants of (and changes in) consumption, poverty, growth, and inequality in Bangladesh from 1983 to 1996. Education, demographics, land ownership, occupation, and geographic location all affect...

The author provides two extensions to Yitzhaki and Lerman's group decomposition of the Gini index. First, he analyzes stratification (within the group) and inequality (between groups) along several dimensions at once. This makes the determinants of inequality more understandable. Second, he...

This paper develops criteria for a new concept of restricted inequality dominance and show how they relate to criteria for comparing relative poverty. The results warn against the use of some popular indices of inequality. They do, however, suggest an interesting extension of the Schutz...

This paper extends the previous literature on the normative links between the measurement of poverty, social welfare and inequality. We show how, when the range of possible poverty lines is unbounded above, a robust ranking of absolute poverty may be interpreted as a robust ranking of social...

In this article, we analyze the redistributive impact of a recent reform of tuition fees in Quebec. We adapt Duclos, Makdissi and Wodon's (2005) methodology to a Generalized Lorenz framework. Many policy analysts argued that maintaining low higher education tuition fees is regressive. We take a...

This paper extends the previous literature on the normative links between the measurement of poverty, social welfare and inequality. We show how, when the range of possible poverty lines is unbounded above, a robust ranking of absolute poverty may be interpreted as a robust ranking of social...