The paper focuses on durable goods and their role in the measurement of living standards. The paper reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the methods available to estimate the value of the services flowing from consumer durable goods. It also provides a unified framework that encompasses the...

The paper focuses on durable goods and their role in the measurement of living standards. The paper reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the methods available to estimate the value of the services flowing from consumer durable goods. It also provides a unified framework that encompasses the...

We argue against the use of composite indices, such as the Human Development Index (HDI), in economic history. We show that the HDI can be interpreted as a formal representation of the analyst’s ethical system. We support our claim by introducing a new class of paternalistic social welfare...

Measuring poverty entails making interpersonal welfare comparisons, that should account for differences in prices faced by households, both over time and across space. This paper investigates the impact of seemingly minor differences in the practical implementation of price adjustments, by...

Extreme values are common in survey data and represent a recurring threat to the reliability of both poverty and inequality estimates. The adoption of a consistent criterion for outlier detection is useful in many practical applications, particularly when international and intertemporal...

Extreme values are common in survey data and represent a recurring threat to the reliability of both poverty and inequality estimates. The adoption of a consistent criterion for outlier detection is useful in many practical applications, particularly when international and intertemporal...