The paper characterizes a family of downside risk measures. They depend on a target value and a parameter reflecting the attitude towards downside risk. The indicators are probability weighted -order means of possible shortfalls. They form a subclass of the measures intro¬duced by Stone...

If the social welfare of households of different demographic type has to be evaluated, the author observes considerable disagreement about the way the composition of households is to be taken into account. This paper makes an attempt to differentiate some of the various approaches. It deals with...

The paper presents a (theoretical) investigation of the distributional impacts of environmental commodities. It introduces an appropriate framework, defines concepts for measuring benefits and examines the determinants of benefit incidence within this setup. Its emphasis is on methodology and on...

Household needs must be taken into account when designing an equitable income tax. If the equivalence scale is income dependent it is not transparent how to achieve equity. In this paper we explore the question of horizontal equity and the implications for progression (vertical equity), when the...

The paper deals with distributional issues in environmental economics. It considers a single-good market under perfect competition and a negative externality. The decision-maker uses an emission standard or an emission tax, whose revenue is recycled. Under the assumption that she distinguishes...

The paper examines income distributions of a finite population consisting of households which may differ with respect to needs. Since observed incomes are not directly comparable, income distributions have to be adjusted. Incomes are transformed to equivalent incomes interpreted as living...