We propose graphical methods to determine whether commodity-tax changes are "socially efficient", in the sense of improving social welfare or decreasing poverty for large classes of social welfare and poverty indices. We also derive estimators of critical poverty lines and economic efficiency...

We establish the asymptotic sampling distribution of general functions of quantile-based estimators computed from samples that are not necessarily independent. The results provide the statistical framework within which to assess the progressivity of taxes and benefits, their horizontal inequity,...

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of participation in Québec's social assistance program. The analysis takes into account two sources of intergenerational transmission: one that is due to a causal link between parents' and children's participation and one that is due to a...

The paper proposes and applies statistical tests for poverty dominance that check for whether poverty comparisons can be made robustly over ranges of poverty lines and classes of poverty indices. This helps provide both normative and statistical confidence in establishing poverty rankings across...

This paper uses sequential stochastic dominance procedures to compare the joint distribution of health and income across space and time. It is the first application of which we are aware of methods to compare multidimensional distributions of income and health using procedures that are robust to...

Public funding of child care (CC) features prominently in the achievement of several social objectives in Quebec and across Canada. This article provides evidence on the impact of three main measures of public CC funding in Quebec (the provincial tax credit, the federal income tax deduction, and...