This paper, prepared for the Handbook of Income Distribution (edited by A.B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon), reviews some of the central issues that arise in thinking about the motives for, politics of, constraints on and measurement of, redistribution. Amongst the themes are: the potential...

The principal objective of this study is to test whether public expenditures on education, health and other development activities have been effective in reducing poverty in India. To ensure sensitivity and robustness of the results, three different measures of poverty belonging to the...

I study the optimal redistributive structure when individuals with distinct productivities also differ in disutility of work due to either disability or distaste for work. Taxpayers have resentment against inactive benefit recipients because some of them are not actually disabled but lazy....

Este trabajo caracteriza las diferencias entre las distribuciones del ingreso de las áreas urbanas de América Latina a través de descomposiciones aplicadas sobre microdatos de las encuestas de hogares de los países de la región. Los resultados indican que las diferencias entre países en...

This document presents and discusses an extensive set of statistics aimed at characterizing the degree of economic polarisation in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The study is based on a dataset of household surveys from 21 LAC countries in the period 1989-2004. Latin America...

En el presente trabajo se analiza la importancia de las instituciones en la distribución del ingreso. Se plantea un contexto donde sólo pueden existir cambios en la varianza de la distribución y no en la media (se supone en el modelo planteado que no hay inversión), y se obtiene que la...

In the midst of a serious macroeconomic crisis Argentina implemented a large social program – the Programa Jefes de Hogar (PJH) – that provides cash transfers to unemployed household heads meeting certain criteria. In practice, giving the difficulties in monitoring informal jobs, the...

This paper examines the relationship between caste and gender inequality in three states in India. When households are grouped using conventional, government-defined categories of caste we find patterns that are consistent with existing literature: lower-caste women are more likely to...

This paper delves into the relationship between child nutritional outcome and (multiple) female work status in Nigeria from a micro perspective. The child nutritional outcome is proxied by child weight-for-age. Female work includes wage employment outside the household, household on-farm...