We use income satisfaction data in order to estimate equivalence scales. Our method differs from previous attempts to use satisfaction data for this purpose in that it can be used to estimate or evaluate any given parametric equivalence scale. It can also be employed to investigate specific...

This paper deals with estimating peaked densities over the interval [0,1] using two-sided power distribution (Kotz, van Dorp, 2004). Such data were encountered in experiments determining certainty equivalents of lotteries (Kontek, 2010). This paper summarizes the basic properties of the...

Inequality is anisotropic: its intensity is variable along the income scale. Therefore, to focus on local inequalities, a new representation, the isograph, is developed to figure their variations. This leads to the expression of three coefficients able to summarize the shape of inequalities: a...

This paper revisits the fitting of parametric distributions to earned income data. In line with Camilo Dagum's dictum that candidate distribution should not only be chosen for fit, but that economic content should also play a role, a new candidate is proposed. The fit of a simple finite mixture...

Poverty and inequality are often estimated from grouped data as complete household surveys are neither always available to researchers nor easy to analyze. In this study we assess the performance of functional forms proposed by Kakwani (1980a) and Villasenor and Arnold (1989) to estimate the...

Politicians seeking reelection need voters to know what they have done for them. Thus, incentives may arise to spend more money where media coverage is higher. We present a simple model to explain the allocation of public spending across jurisdictions contingent on media activity. An incumbent...

In this paper, we develop and numerically solve a model of idiosyncratic labour income and idiosyncratic interest rates to predict the evolution of a wealth distribution over time. Stochastic labour income follows a deterministic growth trend and it fluctuates between a wage and unemployment...

The chapter examines how the various dimensions of economic inequality between men and women are analyzed today. Beyond the gender wage gap—a central issue—and of course the still far from equal sharing of housework, the chapter also reviews research on gender inequality in access to...

The situation of a limited availability of historical data is frequently encountered in portfolio risk estimation, especially in credit risk estimation. This makes it, for example, difficult to find temporal structures with statistical significance in the data on the single asset level. By...

The carry-over effect is the advance contribution of the old year to growth in the new year. Among practitioners the informative content of the carry-over effect for short-term forecasting is undisputed and is used routinely in economic forecasting. In this paper, the carry-over effect is...