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We compare two approaches to measuring inequity in the health distribution. The first is the concentration index. The second is the calculation of the inequality in an overall measure of individual well-being, capturing both the income and health dimensions. We introduce the concept of equivalent income as a measure of well-being that respects preferences with respect to the trade-off between income and health, but is not subjectively welfarist since it does not rely on the direct measurement of happiness. Using data from a representative survey in France, we show that equivalent incomes can be measured using a contingent valuation method. We present counterfactual simulations to illustrate the different perspectives of the approaches with respect to distributive justice.

We adopt a standard distributional impact methodology, based on Atkinson's cost of inequality approach, to estimate the degree of implicit redistribution created through public funding of health insurance in Canada. The first stage of the exercise is to determine the public health insurance benefits received by families of various age and composition and to add these to measured after-tax incomes. In our base case, which uses the Atkinson Mean Logarithmic Deviation as inequality index, we find that accounting for public health insurance benefits implies a reduction in inequality equivalent to 2.4% of per capita income. We then model the implications of moving to a hypothetical fully privatized system while proportionately refunding to individuals the tax revenues saved in doing so. This would give rise to a further 2.4% equivalent per capita income reduction resulting from increased inequality in the distribution of after-tax income. Thus, for this scenario, moving from public financing of health insurance in Canada to a fully privatized system implies an overall increase in inequality equivalent to a loss of 4.8% of per capita income. This corresponds to an increase of about 25% in existing inequality. Not surprisingly, the impact of publicly financed health insurance in reducing inequality is strongest for the elderly.

Labor markets for unskilled and low-wage workers in the United States stagnated in the last quarter of the 20th century. The collapse in the low-wage labor market has been well documented¹ and numerous research initiatives have investigated the causes. Despite some geographical mismatches between buyers and sellers low-paying jobs are generally available but forces are at work on both the demand and supply sides of unskilled labor markets that make it increasingly difficult for working families at or near the bottom of the income distribution to earn enough to meet basic needs. Welfare reform effectively increased the supply of unskilled workers, which placed added pressures on wages and earnings of low-income families.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of credit access on income and multidimensional poverty by providing an econometric framework.

The study is conducted in Assam, India and uses a quasi-experiment design to gather primary data. Econometric tools like Heckit procedure, Tobit selection equation and probit model are used for empirical purpose.

The paper finds that the level of individual welfare is influenced by equivalent factors. In addition, the study observes a larger incidence of poverty among treatment households of semiformal and informal borrowers. The study argues that formal sources are more effective in reducing the number of poor households by lifting those who are closest to the poverty line.

The study indicates a vicious circle of income and multidimensional poverty among semiformal and informal borrowers. By tradition, as rural Assam gets a dominant role of traditional community-based financial institutions, we should develop the banking structure by involving these institutions. The study excludes other probable explanatory variables while evaluating the impact of credit access on income and multidimensional poverty, and this limitation is left to future research.

This is probably the first empirical paper in Assam showing the impact of credit access on multidimensional poverty by adjusting for endogeneity and selection bias.

This paper examines the question of the extent to which redistribution can be achieved using a structure of consumption taxes with differential rates and exemptions. A local measure of progression, that of liability progression (equivalent to the revenue elasticity) is examined. Results are obtained for the Australian indirect tax structure. These are compared with structures in which only commodity groups with total expenditure elasticities greater than 1 are taxed. Comparisons are also made using equivalent variations, and inequality measures of a money metric welfare measure are reported.

The authors study the difference between multidimensional well-being inequality and income inequality and propose a method to decompose the difference between the Gini coefficients of income and equivalent income (EI), a multidimensional well-being measure that respects individual preferences towards what constitutes a good life. The authors propose a method to decompose the inequality difference into two parts: the vertical and reranking effects. The vertical effect arises from the correlation between income and non-income dimensions, and between income and preferences. The reranking effect arises from the fact that some persons occupy a different position in the EI distribution compared to the income distribution. The authors also propose a detailed decomposition method based on the Shapley value to decompose each of the two effects by non-income dimensions. The authors apply the decompositions using data for 27 countries, considering five non-income dimensions: unemployment, health, housing, crime and environment. The results show that inequality is much higher for EI that the reranking effect accounts for a large part of the inequality difference, and that health is the non-income dimension contributing most to both effects.

Some personal income tax breaks reward socially approved activities, others serve the interests of tax administrators and special interest groups. All give rise to classical HI. We allow for the categorization of tax breaks into deserving and undeserving types, and pose a “modified HE” requirement which legitimizes the former. Deserving breaks result in a loss of VE, non-deserving ones in (modified) HI. The equity cost of each tax break can be assessed. For the U.S. personal income tax, modified HI is potentially a lot smaller than classical HI: e.g. the charitable giving tax break alone in 1990 accounted for 44% of classical HI.

This paper analyzes the impact of family background characteristics and social exclusion features on the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment and income positions, and the relative poverty risk in Germany and the United States. These countries vary widely by welfare regime, family role patterns, and labor market settings. From these differences we predict higher intergenerational income elasticities in the United States and higher intergenerational educational elasticities in Germany. Using longitudinal data from the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) 1980–2008, we find some empirical support for these hypotheses. In both countries, parental educational attainment stimulates intergenerational economic and social mobility, which accentuates the importance of promoting human capital accumulation.

From time to time we have had occasion to refer to earnings per share in terms of the new ‘imputation’ system of company taxation. This is a somewhat complex system and we have asked our Financial Correspondent to explain in some detail what is involved. In attempting an explanation, he has found it useful to compare the present system not only, as others have done, with the preceding corporation tax system inaugurated by Mr Callaghan in his 1965 Budget, but also with the earlier profits‐cum‐ income tax system. There are of course many other systems of company taxation, but for purposes of explanation a comparison of the three systems — profits‐plus‐income tax, the Callaghan‐type corporation tax, and the imputation system—is sufficient.