We examine individuals' distributional orderings in a number of contexts. This is done by using a questionnaire-experiment that is presented to respondents in any one of seven "flavours" or interpretations of the basic distributional problem. The flavours include inequality, risk, social welfare...

Orderings of income distribution in terms of inequality should be closely related to orderings in terms of risk. Using a novel mult-country questgionnaire experiment we examine the basis for this claim in terms of respondents' distributional perceptions. We show that in terms of both inequality...

We examine the specification and interpretation of the transfer principle in analysing income distributions. The early work by Pigou and Dalton on this topic left open the possibility of a variety of specifications and interpretation of the principle. The modern development of the theory since...

We examine the implications of three similar criteria that are commonly used in welfare economics and the analysis of inequality and poverty - income dominance, monotonicity and the Pareto principle - within the context of income-distribution comparisons. We show that whilst there is a simple...

We examine the relationship between risk analysis and inequality analysis, using a questionnaire-experimental approach .The experiments focus on the effect of income transformations on the perceived rankings of income distributions in either a risk or inequality context. Both context and income...

We establish a general relationship between the standard form of the individualistic social-welfare function and the ?reduced-form? version that is expressed in terms of inequality and mean income. This shows the relationship between the property of monotonicity and the slope of the...

It is known from the literature on uncertainty that in cases where individuals express a preference for a high win-probability bet over a bet with high winnings they nevertheless will bid more to obtain the bet with high winnings. We investigate whether a similar phenomenon applies in the...

We examine the way in which across-the-board additions to incomes are perceived to change inequality. Using a questionnaire we investigate whether subjective inequality rankings correspond to the principle of scale-independence of translation-independence, or to some generalised concept of...

Is there a trade-off between people's preference for income equality and income mobility? Testing for the existence of such a trade-off is difficult because mobility is a multifaceted concept. We analyse results from a questionnaire experiment based on simple precise concepts of income...

We re-examine some of the standard axioms used in the literature on Poverty Measurement. Using a sample of 486 students from Australia, Israel and the USA we investigate the extent to which perceptions of poverty correspond to the axioms.