In this paper a new method to estimate the equivalence scale elasticity using individual panel data on income satisfaction will be developed. In contrast to other subjective approaches, the present one benefits from the fact that no direct cardinal individual welfare function has to be...

The techniques of simple random sampling are seldom appropriate in the empirical analysis of income distributions. Various types of weighting schemes are usually required either from the point of view of welfare-economic considerations (the mapping of household/family distributions into...

In this paper a new method to estimate the equivalence scale elasticity using individual panel data on income satisfaction will be developed. In contrast to other subjective approaches, the present one benefits from the fact that no direct cardinal individual welfare function has to be...

We show that the weak Pareto law, as used to characterize the tail behaviour of income distributions, implies regularly varying tail probabilities, but that the reverse implication does not hold. We also establish implications among other versions of the weak Pareto law.

The Benini distribution is a lognormal-like distribution generalizing the Pareto distribution. Like the Pareto and the lognormal distributions it was originally proposed for modeling economic size distributions, notably the size distribution of personal income. This paper explores a...

The interest in the level of global inequality has surged in recent years. This paper complements existing estimates of global inequality by providing the first estimates of the level of bipolarization of the global income distribution. During 1975-2010, global bipolarization declined...

Prevailing measures of relative poverty are unchanged when all incomes grow or contract by the same proportion. This property stems from seemingly implausible assumptions about the disutility of relative deprivation and the cost of social inclusion. We propose ‘‘weakly relative’’ lines...