Economic aspects of regional welfare: Income distribution and unemployment

Content. - 1. Introduction. - 1.1. Study of welfare aspects in economics. - 1.2. Disparities in regional welfare. - 1.3. Selection of regional welfare elements. - 1.4. Methods. - 1.5. Layout. - 2. Statistical and Related Income Inequality Measures, With No Explicit Specification of a Probability Density- or Welfare-Function. - 2.1. The concept of an inequality measure. - 2.2. Notations. - 2.3. Statistical and other non-welfare-based inequality measures with an unspecified p.d. f. - 2.3.1. Partial statistical indicators of dispersion. - 2.3.2. Functions of simple location parameters and ordinary moments. - 2.3.3. The first absolute moment and related inequality measures. - 2.3.4. The mean difference and related measures. - 2.3.5. Some general divergence measures. - 2.3.6. Some measures related to entropy. - 2.4. A partial evaluation of statistical and related inequality measures. - Appendix 2A. Elementary definitions. - Appendix 2B. Partial statistical indicators of dispersion. - Appendix 2C. Decomposition formulae. - 3. Explicit Probability Density Functions of Income. - 3.1. The usefulness of an explicit probability density function of income. - 3.2. Alternative approaches and selection criteria for defining a set of p.d. f.s. - 3.3. A direct definition of a skew p.d. f. of income. - 3.4. A definition of a skew p.d. f. of income using transformations. - 3.4.1. The lognormal distribution. - 3.4.2. The inverse hyperbolic sine normal distribution. - 3.4.3. The log logistic or sech distribution. - 3.4.4. The Champernowne distribution. - 3.4.5. The log Student p.d. f. - 3.4. 6. The Box Cox Champernowne distribution. - 3.4. 7. The Beta distribution. - 3.5. A preliminary evaluation of some p.d. f.s. - 3.6. Methods of parameter estimation. - 3.7. Aspects of goodness of fit. - 3.8. Concluding remarks. - Appendix 3A. The Pareto distribution. - 4. Income Inequality Measures and Welfare Functions of Income. - 4.1. The use of a welfare function of income. - 4.2. A partial group welfare function of incomes. - 4.3. An additive individualistic welfare approach to income inequality measurement. - 4.4. Non-additivity of individual welfare levels and inequality measurement. - 4.5. An evaluation of the welfare approach. - 5. Inequality Measures with Explicit Statements on Weights and Reference Distribution. - 5.1. Introduction. - 5.2. Specification of a target income distribution. - 5.3. Indices of divergence from a target distribution. - 5.4. Relevance of the approach. - 6. Intra-Regional Income Distributions in the Netherlands. - 6.1. Introduction. - 6.2. Personal income data for COROP regions. - 6.3. Some location parameters for intra-regional income distributions. - 6.4. Inequality measures for intra-regional income distributions: some general remarks. - 6.5. Statistical and related inequality measures: empirical results. - 6.6. Inequality measures based on a welfare function: empirical results. - 6.7. Selection of a p.d. f. of income: empirical results. - 6.8. Associations between inequality measures: empirical results. - 6.9. Selection of attractive inequality measures. - 6.10. Interpretations of results of inequality measures. - Appendix 6A. Definition of taxable income 1969. - 7. An Exploratory Statistical Analysis of Regional Unemployment. - 7.1. Indicators of unemployment as elements of the regional welfare profile. - 7.2. Unemployment data and concepts. - 7.3. Statistical assumptions. - 7.4. An elementary statistical analysis. - 7.5. Auto-spectral analysis. - 7.6. Cross-spectral analysis. - 7.7. Principal components analysis of the spectral estimates. - 7.8. Evaluation of the results. - 8. Variables Associated with Intra-Regional Income Distributions. - 8.1. An empirical analysis of associated variables. - 8.2. Variables influencing personal incomes. - 8.3. Economic theories to explain personal incomes. - 8.4. Estimation of a relation for the level of regional income. - 8.5. Estimation of a relation for intra-regional income inequality. - 8.6. An attempt to reveal implicit social norms simultaneously. - 8.7. Some final remarks. - Appendix 8A. Data on selected intra-regional variables. - 9. An Explanatory Model of Labour Market and Income Distribution. - 9.1. Integration of welfare elements in a comprehensive framework. - 9.2. Specification of labour market relations. - 9.2.1. Demand for labour. - 9.2.2. Labour supply. - 9.2.3. Discrepancies on the labour market. - 9.3. Regional income and its distribution. - 9.4. The availability of data. - 9.5. Some final remarks.