Inequality measurement involves explicit or implicit value judgements. The subjective approach to inequality measurement is a relatively new and fast-developing area which focueses direct attention on these judgements. It is 'subjective' in the sense that it takes accounts of peoples' views on...

This paper studies cross-country patterns of economic growth from the viewpoint of income distribution dynamics. Such a perspective raises new empirical and theoretical issues in growth analysis: the profound empirical regularity is an \emerging twin peaks" in the cross-sectional distribution,...

Averaging methods are routinely used in order to limit biases resulting from the mismeasurement of permanent incomes. The Solon/Zimmerman estimator regresses a single-year measurement of the child's resources on a T-period average of the parents' income while the Behrman/Taubman estimator...

The shadow economy and tax evasion are both widespread in Greece. This has adverse effects in terms of horizontal and vertical equity, as well as in terms of efficiency. We take advantage of access to a large sample of income tax returns in 2004/05, and compare tax reported incomes with those...

The ‘deliberative turn’ in democratic theory has generated a wealth of deliberative experiments. The purpose of deliberation as a research technique (as opposed to policymaking or public consultation) is distinctive: to uncover the public’s informed, considered, and collective view on a...

Should raising the growth rate of GDP per capita be a policy goal of governments in general, and of the British government in particular? Many people would say no, for the following reasons: 1) GDP is hopelessly flawed as a measure of welfare; 2) Growing GDP is pointless since most people don’t...

Theil’s information-theoretic approach to the measurement of inequality (Theil 1967) is set in the context of subsequent developments over recent decades. It is shown that Theil’s initial insight leads naturally to a very general class of inequality measures. It is thus closely related to a...

This paper presents a political economy model of inflation as a result of social conflict. Agents are heterogeneous in terms of income. Agents’ income levels determine their ability to hedge against the effects of inflation. The interaction of heterogeneous cash holdings and preferences over...

The paper analyses the performance of unemployment benefit systems in a search-theoretic framework. The criteria of evaluation comprise the alleviation of poverty and the reduction in income inequality, whilst the diversity of opinions about these is taken into account. Also, the trade-off...

Starting from the axiomatisation of polarisation contained in Esteban and Ray (1994) and Chakravarty and Majumdar (2001) we investigate whether people's perceptions of income polarisation is consistent with the key axioms. This is carried out using a questionnaire-experimental approach that...