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This paper examines the impact on German personal income distribution of income-dependent (variable) equivalence scales. The use of variable equivalence scales causes distinctive increases in income inequality compared with income-independent, constant equivalence scales. The narrowing of income limits between the upper and lower income regions also leads to an increase in income inequality.

The chapter estimates the cost of maintaining a child, at different ages, the cost of being single, and the cost of additional adults present in a family, with the aim of making comparable the income levels of different households. The study investigates the issue of econometric identification of equivalence scales within a demand system modified to include demographic characteristics consistently with economic theory. It shows that a robust estimation of equivalence scales must take into formal consideration the problem of econometric identification. The estimate also puts forward all-encompassing demographic specifications to identify costs due to differences in needs, household lifestyles, and economies of scale.

Equivalence scales are deflators (or “scales”) by which the incomes of different household types can be converted to a comparable, needs-adjusted basis. They are measures of intra-household sharing potentials and differences in family members’ needs (i.e., of adults vs. children). One strand of literature uses econometric approaches to derive equivalence scales from household expenditure and time-use data. Another strand uses survey responses of people to quantify equivalence scales directly. Equivalence scales are potentially useful in several areas such as welfare-system design, income taxation, measurement of poverty and inequality, and determining lost earnings damages. This chapter surveys the literature on equivalence scales and presents some applications.

The purpose of this paper is to calculate the subjective equivalence scale and poverty rates for Poland and compare them to equivalence scales in Eastern and Western Europe.

The analysis is based on European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data for 2005-2012. In particular, the authors capture the minimum needs income question and, knowing the minimum needs income of each individual’s observation, apply OLS regression controlling for income and household structure to estimate the poverty threshold, equivalence scales and poverty.

The subjective equivalence scales for the Euro Zone are constant for the period 2004-2012 and less stable for the CEE countries. The child cost in relation to the cost brought by an additional adult is higher in the CEE countries than in the Euro Zone countries. The subjective poverty rates are lower than the OECD rates. The only exceptions are Latvia, Estonia and Bulgaria.

The authors extend the analysis made by Bishop et al. (2014) by adding data for the years after 2007 and countries outside the Euro Zone.

Establishing the validity and measurement equivalence of core marketing concepts in the emerging market economies of Africa is a key step in assessing the transferability of modern marketing theory and managerial practice to these countries. However, measurement equivalence issues are rarely addressed in studies of marketing practices in Africa. Accordingly, this study examines the equivalence of core marketing concepts based on interviews of 459 marketing managers from Kenya, Nigeria, Japan and the USA. The results show that optimal scaling analysis of the managers’ evaluations provide more valid and meaningful assessment than that of the raw data. The managers’ evaluations of the concepts revealed amazingly similar or prototypical perceptions of marketing’s core concepts and its applicability in their organizations, despite the profound country environmental differences. It appears that the concepts fall into two cross‐national categories of applicability that permeate the industrialized and developing country categorization. Managerial and research implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether household preferences satisfy the assumption of base-independence, to examine the effects of household income on equivalence scales and thereby food consumption economies of scale and to examine how far conventional poverty rates require adjustment when scale economies in food consumption are taken into consideration.

To achieve these aims, the authors use a Pendakur (1999) adaptation of the test of base-independence, and income dependent Engel (1895) equivalence scales.

In Sri Lanka, the hypothesis of base-independence is rejected: the equivalence scales increase with household income both at the national and the sectoral level, that is urban, rural and estate sectors. This suggests that low-income households enjoy greater scale economies. After adjusting for scale economies, urban, rural and estate poverty headcount ratios decline by 3.2, 8.8 and 13.7, respectively, while at the national level the decline is about 8.3.

The results are based on the assumption that all of the adults in the households have identical tastes, irrespective of their gender and age. Furthermore, the survey data exclude three districts in the northern province of Sri Lanka due to resettlement activities took place after the civil war.

Higher scale economies among the poor imply that poverty among low-income households is overstated when using traditional measures of poverty rates.

The novelty of this paper is that it provides insights on the effect of income on food consumption economies of scale and implications of this phenomenon on poverty estimates in the context of a developing country like Sri Lanka.

The authors aim to demonstrate the impact of allowing for unequal intra-household distribution of resources on income poverty and income inequality.

The paper applies a collective consumption model to study the intra-household distribution of resources in Visegrád countries (V4). It utilises subjective financial satisfaction as a proxy for indirect utility from individual consumption to estimate the indifference scales within couples instead of the traditional equivalence scale. The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2013 and 2018 data are applied.

This study’s results indicate substantial economies of scale from living in a couple that are generally higher than implied by the commonly applied equivalence scale. The sharing rule estimates suggest that at the mean of distribution factors, women receive a consumption share between 0.4 and 0.6; however, some of the results are close to an equal sharing of 0.5. The female consumption share rises with her contribution to household income. Regarding income poverty and inequality, the authors show that both these measures might be underestimated in the traditional approach to equal sharing of resources.

The authors add to the empirics by estimating indifference scales for Czechia (CZ), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL) and Slovakia (SK), countries that have not been involved in previous research.

Dominance techniques are used to analyze and rank inequality, welfare, and poverty across regions in Thailand in the 1990s. Inference-based dominance methods are applied to consumption expenditure microdata from the Household Socio-Economic Surveys (SES) of 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000. Attention is focused on the period immediately before and after the economic contraction of 1996–1997. Lorenz dominance is employed to assess inequality, while first-order Engel food share dominance is applied to rank welfare across time and among regions. Poverty is evaluated by comparing truncated food-share quantile functions. The evidence reveals that the economic crisis in 1997 seems to affect inequality in Bangkok (the richest region) more than the Northeast (the poorest region), and most dramatic changes occur in the North and South. Welfare in Bangkok is unambiguously higher than in other regions before and after economic contraction. In fact, the great economic contraction changes the rankings of economic well-being and poverty only in the North, South, and Northeast.

Cross‐cultural research in marketing has been dominated by survey‐based quantitative approaches; however, the assumption of prior validity required for the adoption of the survey approach to values in cross‐cultural research has yet to be established. This paper aims to review the literature and outlines the problems of the survey‐based approach to cross‐cultural values research. These criticisms relate both to the choice of the method and its execution. The paper outlines the multiplicative effects of these problems, that threaten the validity of the survey methodology in this context, and suggests a methodological alternative.

This paper reviews and synthesises the relevant literature on conceptual and methodological issues pertinent to the survey approach to values research in a cross‐cultural context.

A review of the literature suggests numerous methodological problems that threaten the validity and reliability of the survey approach to cross‐cultural values research. This review exposes a methodological gap that can be filled by a qualitative approach to the study of values in cross‐cultural research. In particular, the paper advocates means‐end methodology as offering significant strengths and addressing several of the weaknesses of the survey‐based approach to cross‐cultural values research.

The paper synthesises the literature on methodological issues in cross‐cultural values research, bringing together disparate criticisms which reveal the range of unresolved problems with the empirical, survey‐based approach to cross‐cultural values research; the paper also offers a suggestion for an alternative methodological approach. The means‐end approach is increasingly being used in various research areas; this paper highlights its appropriateness in a cross‐cultural context, as an alternative to predefined and culturally determined measures that limit our understanding of cross‐cultural values. Means‐end addresses many of the specific weaknesses of the survey method identified in the literature review. This discussion of methodological issues has implications for the field of cross‐cultural research more generally and suggests a critical re‐assessment of cross‐cultural methods is needed.

Explores the interval nature of semantic scale adjectives across three languages: English, Putonghua Chinese, and Japanese. Reports on a pilot study conducted among native speakers of each language using the techniques of magnitude scaling. Respondents rated an assortment of common adjectives by comparing the magnitude of the word to a given modulus. The results indicate that the traditional translation/back‐translation technique may not provide response intervals that are comparable cross‐culturally. Further, between languages the results indicate that the meaning attached to the adjectives by native speakers varies substantially. Discusses implications for market research, as well as future areas of research.