One of the costs of high levels of inflation may be misperceptions of relative prices and excessive volatility in sectoral output. This paper, therefore, examines the relationship between the level of inflation and sectoral output growth variability in Canada from 1961:1 to 1995:4. Despite the...

We assemble data from several different sources to examine the cross-national effects of inequality and trust on social expenditures. We find that the inequality between the middle classes and the poor (as measured by the 50/10 percentile ratio) has a small, positive impact but inequality...

Between 1980 and 2000, average actual working hours per adult of working age rose by in the USA (to 1476) while falling by 170 in Germany to (973). These differentials are now enough to create significant differences in quality of life - and they imply that growth in per GDP may be a poor...

Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is a poor indicator of economic well-being. It measures effective consumption poorly (ignoring the value of leisure and of longer life spans) and it also ignores the value of accumulation for the benefit of future generations. Since incomes are uncertain...

Within the OECD, there are significant differences in the trend and level of average work hours. [For example, from 1980 to 2000, average working hours per adult (ages 15-64) rose by 234 hours in the USA to 1476 while falling by 170 hours in Germany, to 973]. Since these trends appear to be...

Labor economists have developed elaborate theoretical models and conducted very advanced econometric analyses of the decision making of households. But this emphasis on the supply side of the labor market has not been matched by any corresponding degree of sophistication in empirical analysis of...

In this paper, we propose a unified framework for the Sen indices of poverty intensity that shows an explicit connection between the indices and the common underlying social evaluation function. We also identify the common multiplicative decomposition of the indices that allows simple and...

The Human Development Index (HDI) uses GDP per capita to measure 'command over resources,' which implicitly makes the strong value judgment that inequality and insecurity do not matter. This paper presents revised estimates of the Index of Economic Well-Being (IEWB) for the United States, the...

Arguing that the consequences of the unemployment crisis could have been avoided by better government policies, particularly less restrictive monetary control, the contributors examine the effect of the zero-inflation policy adopted by the Bank of Canada and the role of unemployment insurance on...

This paper proposes a new and unified framework for the Sen and Sen-Shorrocks-Thon indices of poverty intensity, which shows an explicit connection between the two indices and the underlying social evaluation function. This paper also identifies the common multiplicative decomposition of the two...