bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
INCOME DISTRIBUTION ISSUES VIEWED IN A LIFETIME INCOME PERSPECTIVE*
Authors: Moss Milton
Published: March 2005

In the June 1977 issue of the American Economic Review extraordinary attention was given to the statistical problem of measuring the effect on inequality in current income arising from differences associated with age. The method adopted by Paglin was severely criticized although everyone recognized the value of Paglin's unusual, if not original, emphasis on the importance of the underlying issue.

This paper is not primarily concerned with the statistical problem of correcting data on current income distributions for income‐age differences. It is concerned mainly with the lifetime income perspective itself‐with ways of viewing the long‐term path of persons and of ways of viewing inequalities in that path as they develop within and among different generations.

The paper discusses issues of measurement on a birth‐cohort or longitudinal basis, recent trends for selected cohorts, intra‐and inter‐cohort variances in lifetime income, and various policy issues, for example, the equity of the U.S. Social Security System viewed on a lifetime dimension.
STUDIES OF INCOME REDISTRIBUTION IN DENMARK
Authors: Bjerke Kjeld , Brodersen Søsren
Published: March 2005

Income redistribution studies on the macro–economic level have been undertaken in Denmark for the years 1938–39, 1949, 1955, and 1963. By use of national accounts figures and all other available statistics, it was on certain assumptions possible to distribute public sector income and expenditure by income groups.

A quite different approach is used in a Danish redistribution study on the micro‐economic level for 1971, which relies solely on the comprehensive data from the family budget survey for that year. Unfortunately this study only relates to employee households.

This paper deals with the 1963 and 1971 studies. First it describes and discusses the differences in methodology between the two studies and indicates some ideas for future studies in this field in Denmark. In the following sections some main results of the two studies are given, briefly for the 1963 study and more comprehensively for the 1971 study. The studies show the great and growing strength of the policy of redistribution through public sector income and expenditure in Denmark.

It is the opinion of the authors that the appearance of redistribution studies based on comprehensive family budget surveys makes for a substantial improvement of redistribution figures, and that the purely micro‐level frame of reference makes it possible to interpret the results in a more satisfactory way than before. Furthermore, the appearance of detailed input‐output based national accounts data should bring about further improvements in redistribution figures through better data on indirect taxes and subsidies as well as supporting data which are necessary to link the micro and macro levels in a consistent way.
ACCOUNTING FOR THE MISSING MILLIONS: THE CASE OF TAX: HAVENS
Authors: Ward Michael
Published: March 2005

The problem of identification and classification of off‐shore financial flows and extra‐territorial funds is discussed with special reference to the case of the “captive” insurance market in Bermuda. The problem is examined in the context of the UN SNA definitions relating to the evaluation of insurance activities and the difficulty of gaining access to relevant and complete data. The conclusion is reached that the conduct of off‐shore financial operations by local institutions and the resulting surpluses generated remain essentially extranational and thus contribute very little to the domestic value added of the tax haven concerned. Furthermore, by its very nature, information relating to the transactors involved, as well as the value of their transactions, is difficult to obtain. This raises a much wider issue, however, as to whether such surpluses are ever identified in any country's national income estimates.
THE VALUE O F NONMARKET HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION: OPPORTUNITY COST VERSUS MARKET COST ESTIMATES
Authors: Murphy Martin
Published: March 2005

This paper discusses the problem of valuing the time spent on household production and presents estimates of that production for the United States in 1960 and 1970. The estimates are derived by using both opportunity cost and market cost valuations of household time. A comparative analysis of these estimates concludes first that opportunity cost estimates exceeded market cost estimates by 1.0 to 3.0 percent of the GNP. Second, the ratio of household production to the GNP, although declining slightly between 1960 and 1970, may in the long run tend to be relatively stable. These conclusions do not support the popular views that over time household production will decline in relative magnitude, or that the opportunity cost method of valuing household time, relative to the market cost method, is significantly upward biased.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS CONCERNING VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL REDISTRIBUTION IN FINLAND
Authors: Suominen Risto
Published: March 2005

Redistributional effects of income transfers, taxation and social goods in Finland have been studied making use of household surveys for 1966 and 1971 and the input‐output study for 1970. According to the study the selection of income to be used as the criterion in carrying out the decile grouping substantially influences the picture that is obtained of the magnitude of redistribution. If factor income is used as the criterion in carrying out the decile grouping, the redistribution appears substantially greater than when disposable income is used as the criterion. On the other hand, whether income is calculated per capita or per household does not substantially influence the overall picture of redistribution obtained. The breakdown of factor income seems to have remained practically the same in Finland in the interval between the study years, while redistribution seems to have levelled income differences more in 1971 than in 1966.
STOCKS AND DEPRECIATION OF HUMAN CAPITAL: NEW EVIDENCE FROM A PRESENT‐VALUE PERSPECTIVE
Authors: Graham John W. , Webb Roy H.
Published: March 2005

Responding to a perceived growing interest in human wealth estimates, this paper offers a framework for measuring the aggregate stock of human capital and then implements the procedure for the United States male population age 14 to 75. Unlike previous estimates of human wealth that are based upon historical or resource costs, these estimates measure the capital stock as the discounted resent‐value of expected lifetime returns. In the estimation, returns are equated with earnings data from the 1970 U.S. Census 15 percent Public Use Sample for out‐of‐school males, adjusted for employment and survival probabilities, adjusted for an assumed exogenous growth in future earnings, and discounted at 7.5 percent.

We provide cross‐sectional estimates of individual stocks of human capital by age and educational attainment, as well as expected lifetime wealth profiles for individuals by level of education. These individual profiles can be used to obtain direct estimates of age‐specific depreciation which suggest human capital is subject to significant and prolonged appreciation before nearly straight‐line depreciation begins around middle age. This finding is all the more significant since resource‐cost estimates of human capital which must assume a depreciation pattern to obtain stocks have always imposed a much faster rate much sooner.

Finally, an aggregate estimate of the stock of human capital for all males is supplied and its sensitivity to the choice of the discount rate, tax laws, and expected exogenous growth is analyzed. This seemingly‐conservative stock estimate is then compared to a much lower resource‐cost estimate offered recently by John Kendrick. A discount rate over 20 percent would be needed to equate the two measures. In trying to reconcile the two figures, we raise some new questions about the validity of both approaches for human capital accounting.
THE TREATMENT OF “HOME OWNERSHIP” IN THE CPI*
Authors: Rymes T.K.
Published: March 2005

This paper explores the imputed service price approach to the pricing of the services of consumer‐owned‐and‐used durables in the construction of the consumer price index, using the services of owner‐occupied housing as an illustration. A theoretical framework for analyzing this question is first developed. Certain practical problems are then discussed. The conceptual difficulty of constructing an appropriate rate of return on the basis of available data on interest rates and house prices, in the context of inflation, is explored. Two arguments are advanced that statistical agencies ought not to follow the imputed service price approach in pricing the services of owner‐occupied dwellings and other consumer durables. On the one hand, nominal interest rates will, in any short period, reflect monetary policy and not any change in the money “rental” of owner‐occupied houses. Second, movements in nominal interest rates will also reflect changes in the money price of pure consumption goods, as well as changes in the money price of houses. The argument is extended to other consumer durables and, in the limiting case, to monetary balances, and it is concluded that in all but trivial cases the application of the service price approach leads to price movements of little or no meaning.
SHAREHOLDINGS OF NON‐PERSONAL INVESTORS IN MANUFACTURING COMPANIES OF MALAYSIA*
Authors: Ling Sieh Lee Mei
Published: March 2005

The importance of non‐personal shareholders in Malaysian corporations is widely acknowledged. However, up till now, very little has been known about the nature of these shareowners, their manner of equity ownership (especially their size of holdings hence degree of share concentration), their country of incorporation and how they themselves are controlled i.e. whether Malaysian or foreign. This paper attempts to fill this gap with data compiled from official shareholders' lists of the largest ninety‐eight Malaysian incorporated companies engaged in manufacturing, for a point in time 1975–75, which is towards the end of the Second Malaysia Plan period. Some of the empirical findings are then compared with those of a few selected countries.
MONITORING THE LABOUR MARKET: A PROPOSAL FOR A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH IN OFFICIAL STATISTICS (ILLUSTRATED BY RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN FRANCE, GERMANY AND THE U.K.)1
Authors: Maddison Angus
Published: March 2005

This paper analyses the weakness in labour demand which appeared in 1973–78 in France, Germany, and the U.K. and attempts a comprehensive assessment of it. Hitherto, the situation in labour markets has usually been measured by official figures of the registered unemployed which tend to understate unemployment itself and neglect other dimensions of labour slack, such as reversal of previous migration flows or declines in labour force participation or in working hours which may contain highly significant cyclical movements cushioning unemployment.

The report proposes the adoption of a more comprehensive concept for labour market monitoring, along lines already used in the annual reports of the German Institute of Employment Research. Such an approach presents advantages in economic and labour market policy analysis. A simplified form of the proposed monitoring tables is presented in Annex Tables F‐1 to F‐4, G‐1 to G‐4 and U‐1 to U‐4. They can be considered as a potential satellite to existing national accounts.

It is also suggested that analysis of the degree to which labour potential is used be conducted on a regular basis. The possibilities of this approach are outlined in considerable detail in Section V and in the annex. The different dimensions of the use‐of‐potential account are summarised in Table 3.

The report contains a review of the literature on the full employment rate of unemployment and its components. This is one of the major issues on which a judgement must be made in use‐of‐potential analysis. This review is presented in Section VI of the report.

It emerges from the analysis that Germany had the biggest labour slack (8.6 percent of potential) in 1978 though its unemployment rate (3.8 percent of the labour force) was the lowest of the three countries.
HOUSEHOLD INCOME OR HOUSEHOLD INCOME PER CAPITA IN WELFARE COMPARISONS*
Authors: Datta Gautam , Meerman Jacob
Published: March 2005

In studies of income distribution household income is the common measure of household welfare, although household per capita income is better since it automatically “corrects” for household size. Perhaps the continued use of the former is a consequence of the belief that in practice the two give very similar results. This paper shows that in many cases those results differ substantially. Policy prescription based on household income rather than household per capita income can be very defective. The paper compares results according to the two income concepts for Malaysian data. U.S. data are then used in a comparison over time.

The disparity between the two Malaysian distributions is illustrated by their cross tabulation. A quarter of the households in the lowest forty percent of the household income distribution is in the upper three quintiles of household per capita income; and 10 percent of the same lowest forty are in the highest two quintiles of the second distribution. The paper also shows that the distribution of benefits from public education‐measured as the public costs of school years—is very inegalitarian if household income is used. The reverse occurs if household per capita income is used. Similar reversals occur in comparisons involving partitions by occupation and sex of head of household. Women‐headed households, for example, have sub‐mean household incomes but their household income per capita equals the mean. The paper also examines the differences in the age‐income profiles of the two distributions. It then considers whether the much discussed secular stagnation in U.S. measures of inequality is changed if household income per capita is used rather than the usual household income measure. Use of the per capita concept results in a slight decrease in U.S. inequality between 1947 and 1972. Appendix 2 explores how long term growth in per capita incomes and the associated changes in the size composition of households may affect measurements of inequality.
THE IMPACT OF CAPITAL GAINS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME IN BELGIUM
Authors: Praet Peter
Published: March 2005

In an earlier paper, we presented estimates of capital gains for a number of categories of assets owned by Belgian households. The purpose of the present paper is to see how the distribution of disposable income between socio‐economic groups is modified when one adopts a “broadened” definition of income which includes capital gains corrected for losses of purchasing power.

The main result of the study is that at current prices, the adoption of a broadened definition of income strongly increases disparities between socio‐economic groups. However, when one takes into account losses in purchasing power, conclusions differ according to the period analyzed. For the years 1953–68, it appears that the distribution of broadened disposable income is more unequal than the distribution of disposable income. For the years 1969–77 when inflation was high, the adoption of a broadened definition of income has reduced disparities, with the important exception of old age pensioners.
THE IMPACT OF FEMALE WORK ON FAMILY INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES: BLACK‐WHITE DIFFERENTIALS*
Authors: Lehrer Evelyn , Nerlove Marc
Published: March 2005

Using data from the 1973 National Survey of Family Growth, the present study analyzes, for blacks and whites separately, the impact of female market activity on the inequality of the income distribution among households. The family life cycle is divided into three stages, according to the presence and age of children: (1) the interval between marriage and the birth of the first child, (2) the child‐rearing interval, and (3) a final period which begins when all the children have reached school age. Using the coefficient of variation as an indicator of inequality, the empirical results show that in period 1, the contribution of white working wives has a large equalizing impact, while that of their black counterparts results in a slight increase in dispersion. In the child‐rearing and post child‐rearing stages, the labor supply of mothers decreases family income inequality by a small amount for both black and white households. A decomposition of the squared coefficient of variation of family income is presented to aid in the interpretation of these findings.
INCOME‐GENERATING FUNCTIONS IN A LOW INCOME COUNTRY: COLOMBIA
Authors: Fields Gary S. , Paul Schultz T.
Published: March 2005

Income generating functions are statistical tools used to explain income inequality and other economic outcomes and behavior. These functions are often associated with a strict human capital framework, but they need not be. Instead, they may be viewed as a reduced form equation summarizing the relationship between income and various personal and locational characteristics. Following this latter interpretation, we develop the regression and analysis of variance approaches to income generating functions and estimate them empirically using micro‐economic data from one low income country, Colombia. Proceeding to increasingly parsimonious specifications of income generating functions, insights are gained into the structure of incomes in Colombia.
PROBLEMS OF IDENTIFYING AND MEASURING INTERMEDIATE (PRODUCER) SERVICES IN THE COMPILATION AND USE OF INPUT‐OUTPUT TABLES*
Authors: Postner Harry H.
Published: March 2005

The paper is mainly concerned with statistical problems relating to intermediate services that arise in the construction of national input‐output (I–O) tables. Though these problems are sometimes discussed in the literature, their precise nature is usually not spelled out in any detail and this is done in the paper. The problems are closely related to the company‐establishment statistical dichotomy permeating the ultimate sources and allocation of intermediate services. Important examples can be found regarding the statistical treatment of head offices, research and development expenditures, and international trade of intermediate services. Presently used procedures for Canadian and U.S. I–O compilation show evidence of statistical inconsistencies and lack an appropriate framework to utilize full information. The paper suggests a possible approach for reconciling company and establishment data based on industrial organization linkage studies at the microlevel. Considerable empirical support is offered, using various official Canadian statistical publications, to show that the suggested approach is both feasible and has desirable properties.

The paper goes on to argue that the contemporary information technology revolution has profound implications for I–O compilation and use with special reference to intermediate services. Four major implications are explained in the context of the growing microelectronics technological change and related literature. Some basic suggestions are put forward with regard to joint‐cost allocation and inter temporal comparisons problems with respect to I–O compilation. It also appears that some fundamental rethinking of commonly accepted standard industrial classification conventions may be called for in the near future if I–O tables are to remain relevant and viable. The paper thus features a somewhat broader view of I–O statistical problems than usual and attempts to show that this view is potentially appropriate to questions of economic policy formulation.
THE LEVEL OF WORLD INEQUALITY: HOW MUCH CAN ONE SAY?
Authors: Berry Albert , Bourguignon Francois , Morrisson Christian
Published: March 2005

This paper constructs estimates of income and consumption inequality for the world (124 countries), using various measures of inequality. It then goes on to examine the possible effects of various sources of error in the estimates, and attempts to set rough limits to the size of such effects. Among the sources of error examined are purchasing power parities used for currency conversion, systematic errors in estimates of per capita incomes, differences in age structure, government tax and expenditure policy, and lifetime income effects. The paper concludes that, although the level of uncertainty in the estimates is too great to permit conclusions about, for instance, trends over time, it is clear that the level of world inequality is extreme, and that it is primarily due to differences in average incomes across countries rather than to intra‐country inequality.
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: EFFECT OF INCLUDING PENSION RIGHTS, AND ANALYSIS BY AGE‐GROUP*
Authors: Dunn A. T. , Hoffman P. D. R. B.
Published: March 2005

This article on the distribution of wealth among individuals in the United Kingdom presents recent work on the effects of including pension rights and the significance of sex, age and marital status. It describes the rationale for including the accrued rights in occupational and State pension schemes (funded or unfunded) and the methods of estimation used. For funded schemes the rights are valued as the accrued liability of the schemes to their members, and for unfunded schemes similar liabilities are hypothecated; these estimates of the value of accrued pension rights involve assumptions about future earnings and interest rates. The trend in average marketable wealth with age is upwards until advanced years when it slows down or slightly reverses. Adding occupational pension rights only slightly raises the trend for females but has a bigger effect for males. Adding State pension rights raises these upward trends until the age of 60 after which there is a decline. For marketable wealth on the average males are wealthier than females but less wealthy if single, divorced or widowed. Adding occupational pension rights improves the relative position of males; adding State pension rights cancels this out. The effect of marital status rises with both age and sex and therefore a detailed three‐way analysis is made. For females widows are on average the wealthiest; for young males the married; for older males the single. Using Theil's coefficient of entropy for comparing the inequality of wealth, the addition of pension rights reduces inequality by two‐thirds. Age accounts for only 6 percent of inequality for marketable wealth but for 31 percent if pension rights are included.
THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN FRANCE (1977): A FIRST ATTEMPT AT THE ESTATE DUTY METHOD
Authors: Fouquet Annie , Strauss‐Kahn Dominique
Published: March 2005

This paper reports upon the first official application of the estate multiplier method of estimating the wealth distribution to French data. It is based upon a sample of estate duty returns filed during the period September‐December 1977. The sampling rate was 5 percent for estates under one million francs, and 100 percent for estates over this level, giving a total of 5031 records. The data available did not permit a breakdown by type of asset. It did, however, permit classification of estates by age, sex, and occupation of decedent. Experiments were conducted using five different sets of mortality multipliers. The set of mortality multipliers judged most appropriate leads to an estimate of aggregate net wealth that is 77 percent of that given in the national balance sheet of the national accounts. Comparison of the distributions of wealth derived in these estimates suggest that the figures are consistent with those found in other countries.
SATELLITE ACCOUNTS: A RELEVANT FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS IN SOCIAL FIELDS
Authors: Lemaire Maryvonne
Published: March 2005

Social fields are areas of analysis in which one finds both market and non‐market production and situations where indirect means of financing are used, in that expenditure is made by a third party rather than by the consumer.

The borderline between these two spheres changes with time and from one country to another, but often when a system of third party paying is in practice, the difference is hardly noticeable for the beneficiary. On the other hand, the central framework of national accounts introduces a complete dichotomy of these two situations.

In order to obviate this drawback, the national accounts have proposed two solutions. The first leads to having appear on the accounts of households only the expenditure made by them and not the figure of their consumption. Contrary to this is a second solution whereby the consumption account of households is extended to include the non‐market services received directly, and a corresponding imputed income appears.

This second solution makes possible a richer analysis. However, it calls for the use of fictitious circuits and this often creates problems in the choice of a recording time. Furthermore, the number of circuits chosen has to be limited if they are to he the object of international agreement.

The French system of satellite accounts seems particularly well suited to a truly thorough description of these phenomena. In fact, the analysis is carried out from a tripartite point of view of the producer, the beneficiary and the financer (i.e. the third party who takes on the expenditure). In this system, the functional perspective based on the study of the beneficiary of the expenditure can be analysed in greater depth than in the central framework of national accounts.

Thus satellite accounts represent a complementary solution for the processing of problems inherent to these fields.
REGIONAL POLICY‐MAKING AND REGIONAL DATA BASES
Authors: Hjerppe Reino T. , Niitamo Olavi E. , Suur‐Kujala Markku
Published: March 2005

This paper deals with regional accounting problems in Finland. Regional policy planning problems and special regional characteristics of the country are discussed as a background to the development of regional accounts. Accounting problems such as regional division, regionalization methods, general and special solutions to problems affecting specific sectors of the accounts, and problems in allocating production across regions are dealt with in the paper. In addition, supplementary data such as state income and expenditure data by region and regional input‐output calculations, both of which may be needed in regional policy‐making, are discussed. In Finland, both types of data have been included in a regional data bank compiled by the Central Statistical Office. For the future, monitoring regional standards of living and observing differences in welfare and in production by region remain important challenges for the development of regional data systems.
THE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE POVERTY GAP IN CANADA: A MICRO ANALYSIS OF VARIATIONS AMONG DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS
Authors: Messinger Hans , Fedyk Frank , Zeesman Allen
Published: March 2005

Poverty is a much used term by politicians, economists, sociologists, the media and interest groups. Although there is some common consensus that the word poverty means some type of deprivation, there is a lack of comprehensive measures to quantify this term. Although deprivation can relate to a number of areas such as health and education, the focus in policy development has been aimed at economic deprivation or more specifically, income adequacy. Even in this perspective, the availability of comprehensive measures are limited. The United States is the only major industrial nation that has an official poverty line. Several unofficial poverty lines have been developed in Canada, but the poverty measures have not gone beyond head counts of people who fall below these lines. In an environment where the goal is to further progressive social development constrained by inadequate public resources, the emphasis has been on first directing scarce resources to those “most in need”. To get a better perception of economic need, this paper provides a micro analysis of the size and distribution of the poverty gap so that meaningful comparisons can be made between demographic groups. The results of this analysis yield some interesting findings. For example, there are virtually no poor elderly couples and although there are a large number of poor single elderly, their income shortfalls are relatively small and are highly concentrated near the poverty line; the poverty rate among families with children is quite low but their incomes on average fall well below the poverty line and are widely dispersed; and single parents fare badly on all measures.
COMPILATION OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN HIGH INFLATION COUNTRIES
Authors: SSéaruzier Michel
Published: March 2005

Due to inflation, the level of flows of funds is changing over time. Nevertheless, National Accounts aggregate flows annually. High inflation rates create additional difficulties in elaborating constant price accounts as well as current price accounts. Furthermore, one can notice that the accounts themselves partly lose their meaning: deformation of technical coefficients, lack of share between real interests and reimbursement of the debt, change of scale, within a single aggregate, of the flows that compose it. In that inflation context, the national accounts could be interpreted again if it could be possible to reprocess the evaluations: infra‐annual constant price accounts, and above all, “calibrated accounts” are proposed in the course of this paper. The author ends with a description of a simple method to elaborate those “calibrated accounts.”
STOCK FLOW CONSISTENT INCOME FOR INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL COMPANIES
Authors: Patterson K. D.
Published: March 2005

Although industrial and commercial companies (ICCs) are primarily concerned with the production of goods and services which yield a trading profit there is evidence that they have become increasingly concerned with their portfolios of tangible and financial assets and liabilities. As relative prices, interest rates and exchange rates alter, there are implied changes to the realisable net worth of ICCs. That these changes can be substantial is particularly illustrated by reference to the U.K. experience between 1980 and 1982 and in 1985. However, conventional transactions based income measures are purposely not designed to capture these changes. Measuring income on a stock‐flow consistent basis provides a complementary view of the performance of ICCs which is intended to capture these portfolio effects.
THE IMPACT OF BEQUESTS ON LIFETIME WEALTH ACCUMULATION: AN ECONOMETRIC STUDY OF TWO GENERATIONS OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA
Authors: Deolalikar Anil B. , Singh R. P.
Published: March 2005

Using retrospective data on bequest receipts and wealth over two generations of rural Indian households, we have estimated the effect of bequest receipts on the lifetime wealth accumulation of recipients. We exploit the availability of data on two generations of the same household by estimating a family fixed effects model that controls for unobserved, intergenerationally‐persistent household endowments. Our results suggest an adverse impact of bequest receipts on the wealth accumulation of recipients. This effect is much more negative for the current generation of household heads than for the previous generation, indicating that the disincentive effects associated with bequest receipts have increased substantially over a generation. Such disincentive effects are consistent with the commonly‐observed phenomenon of “regression to the mean.” The empirical results also show that the positive association between schooling and wealth accumulation has strengthened substantially over the course of a generation, implying rising returns to schooling.
GENDER WAGE DIFFERENCES IN AUSTRALIA, SWEDEN AND THE UNITED STATES
Authors: Phipps Shelley A.
Published: March 2005

In this paper I use microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study t s investigate the contributions of industrial structure, occupational mix and personal and family characteristics to observed gender differences in wages in Australia, Sweden and the United States. A particular effort is made to analyse differences in distribution as well as level of wages. The conclusion reached is that different factors determine the wages of low‐ and high‐wage workers. For higher‐wage workers, personal and family characteristics are important explanations for wage variation. For lower‐wage workers, occupation plays a more significant role.
AN EVALUATION OF SUBJECTIVE POVERTY DEFINITIONS: COMPARING RESULTS FROM THE U.S. AND THE NETHERLANDS
Authors: Vos Klaas de , Garner Thesia I.
Published: March 2005

In this paper, results of applying the subjective definition of poverty, introduced by Goedhart et al. (1977), in the U.S. and the Netherlands are compared. This definition focuses on the monetary amounts which people consider necessary to make ends meet for their households as provided in response to the Minimum Income Question (MIQ). National data from both countries in the early 1980s are analyzed. In regressions of reported minimum income, corrections are made for the omission of income components and selective non‐response. For the first time the relationship between fixed expenditures and the MIQ is examined. Factors significantly related to reported minimum income include household income, household composition, age, education, sex, region, fixed expenditures, and whether the household experienced recent income changes. The income elasticity appears to be smaller in the U.S. than in the Netherlands, while the effects of other socioeconomic factors are greater. On average, the resulting subjective income thresholds are above official poverty lines, but more so in the U.S. than in the Nerherlands. Whether thresholds based on answers to MIQs should be regarded as poverty lines remains open to question.
INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF EARNINGS INEQUALITY FOR MEN IN THE 1980s
Authors: Green Gordon , Coder John , Ryscavage Paul
Published: March 2005

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of earnings inequality during the 1980s among prime age men who headed households and worked year‐round, full‐time from five industrialized countries‐Canada, Sweden, Australia, West Germany, and the United States. The data were obtained from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database, a multinational collection of microdata sets from various countries which have been assembled for the primary purpose of making cross‐national comparisons of economic and social well‐being. The results of the comparison indicated that during the mid‐1980s, the United States had the most unequal distribution of earnings and Sweden the least unequal. Between the early 1980s and mid‐1980s, however, the earnings distributions in all five countries showed evidence of becoming more unequal, especially in the United States, Canada, and Sweden.
A FEMINISATION OF POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN?
Authors: Wright Robert E.
Published: March 2005

In most industrialised nations, women are over‐represented in the ranks of the poor. Furthermore, it is often argued that this gender‐based disadyantage has increased over time. In this paper the author tests this so‐called “feminisation of poverty” hypothesis in Great Britain. Cross‐sectional data from three years of the Family Expenditure Survey (1968, 1977 and 1986) are used. A poverty measure that is additively decomposable with population share weights, and is consistent with Sen's axiomatic approach to poverty measurement, is used to decompose the “total” amount of poverty into male and female “shares.” Somewhat surprisingly, this decomposition lends no support to the feminisation of poverty hypothesis.
NEW ZEALAND'S GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT: 1859–1939
Authors: Rankin Keith
Published: March 2005

In this paper the author continues the work of Hawke, who used Australian velocity of money data to estimate New Zealand's GDP for 1870–1918, and whose results have been incorporated into international studies through the work of Bairoch. He also provides an alternative set of estimates for the inter‐war years to those published by Lineham. The important findings of the paper are: (i) that Australian data show a significant relationship between the velocity of money and the price level; (ii) that New Zealand's income was significantly higher in 1870 than Hawke's estimates suggest; (iii) that sustained per capita growth has not been New Zealand's normal experience; (iv) that previous GDP estimates for the inter‐war period have failed to reflect the fluctuations of the New Zealand economy and the extent to which it was operating below its production possibilities frontier during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
THE NON‐CONSTANCY OF EQUIVALENCE SCALES
Authors: Conniffe Denis
Published: March 2005

Comparisons of households of differing composition are usually achieved through the use of equivalence scales. It is well known that the choice of scales can have considerable impact on the conclusions drawn from studies of welfare and poverty. There is a considerable literature on the theoretical issues relating to equivalence scales, but applied work on income distribution and related areas almost invariably takes scales to be constant irrespective of income. This paper focuses on the relation of scale to income, by applying theoretical analysis to some simple household types. The conclusion is that scales are not constant and that current practice should be changed.
EARNINGS INEQUALITY IN GREAT BRITAIN 1975–90: THE ROLE OF AGE
Authors: Bell David , Rimmer Russell , Rimmer Sheila
Published: March 2005

This paper is concerned with the growing earnings dispersion among British men. The study is based on unit record data drawn from the New Earnings Survey. It is found that increases in inequality within age groups account for most of the rise in earnings inequality overall. Occupation too is a significant explanation of growing inequality among workers, but the major part of increased inequality within age groups remains unexplained.
ESTIMATES OF THE AGGREGATE QUARTERLY CAPITAL STOCK FOR THE POST‐WAR U.S. ECONOMY
Authors: Levy Daniel , Chen Haiwei
Published: March 2005

We construct quarterly aggregate gross and net capital stock series for the post‐war U.S. economy using annual capital stock, capital depreciation, and capital discard figures along with quarterly investment series. We construct nominal and real measures of all three categories in the aggregate capital stock: consumer durable goods, producer durable goods, and business structures. In constructing the nominal series we take into account the changes in capital goods' prices. The series are constructed using four different methods. Using time‐ and frequency‐domain techniques, we compare the constructed series and characterize their short‐run, business cycle, and long‐run cyclical properties. We find that the constructed series exhibit very different cyclical and shock persistence dynamics. Practial implications are discussed.
POVERTY AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN LATIN AMERICA DURING THE 1980s
Authors: Psacharopoulos George , Morley Samuel , Fiszbein Ariel , Lee Haeduck , Wood William C.
Published: March 2005

On average, poverty and income inequality increased in Latin America during the 1980s. Forty‐six percent of the increase in poverty took place in the cities of Brazil alone, though part of this reflects the migration of poor rural inhabitants to urban areas. There is strong evidence that both income inequality and poverty mirrored the economic cycle, rising during recession and falling during recovery. Economies that grew (e.g. Colombia, Costa Rica) performed better with respect to poverty and income inequality than those that stagnated. In particular, countries that failed to stabilize effectively (e.g. Brazil, Peru) experienced substantial increases in poverty. Educational attainment has the greatest correlation with both income inequality and the probability of being poor. From a policy standpoint, there is a clear association between the provision of education, lessening of income inequality, and poverty reduction.
TAKING THE ENVIRONMENT INTO ACCOUNT: THE NAMEA APPROACH
Authors: de Haan Mark , Keuning Steven J.
Published: March 2005

The National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts (NAMEA) shows environmental burdens that are consistent with the economic figures in the national accounts. In the NAMEA, the existing national accounts matrix has been extended with accounts in physical units. On the basis of the expected contribution of each polluting substance to a particular environmental problem, emissions are converted to theme equivalents. This results in six summary environmental indicators that are directly comparable to the conventional economic aggregates. In addition, this meso‐level information system can be used as the core data framework for integrated analyses and forecasts of economic and environmental changes.
THE HIGH COST OF EATING: CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN CONSUMER FOOD PRICES
Authors: Lipsey Robert E. , Swedenborg Birgitta
Published: March 2005

Prices of food vary greatly among the developed countries, and some countries' food prices have been consistently far above the OECD average. The main explanation for food price difference is the extent of protection of agricultural products at the farm level. A second important influence is the level of VAT on food. A third is deviations of aggregate country price levels from the levels that would be predicted from their per capita incomes, presumably because of omitted characteristics of the countries' economies, such as, possibly, inefficient or monopolistic service sectors. In addition, there are occasional episodes of high or low price levels due to temporary factors affecting exchange rates.

The degree of protection of agricultural products is treated both as an exogenous factor and as an endogenous one. In the latter case, it is explained by climatic conditions and, presumably, the political influence of the agricultural sector or a general desire to retain an agricultural sector despite poor growing conditions.
AN ANNUAL CHAIN INDEX OF ITALY'S “REAL” PRODUCT, 1861–1989
Authors: Fuå Giorgio , Gallegati Mauro
Published: March 2005

The construction and application of a Paasche annual chain index to the Italian GDP figures between 1861 and 1989 is the subject of this article. Comparison with product at constant prices shows, except for war periods, a revaluation of GDP in favour of the annual chain index of around 0.10 percent. The most striking differences are concentrated into periods of marked changes in relative prices, and the new index modifies the temporal pattern of the growth trend by accentuating, without altering the periodization, cyclical fluctuations.
VALUE AND INCOME IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS AND ECONOMIC THEORY
Authors: Bos Frits
Published: March 2005

National accounting concepts of value and income differ from their economic theoretic counterparts in two respects. Firstly, they are more precise in order to give concrete guidelines for measurement, e.g. with respect to the concept of capital formation and the treatment of taxes. Secondly, they are fundamentally different. Valuation in the national accounts is not forward‐looking and not based on a notion of perfect competition. Similarly, concepts of income in the national accounts are not measures of net return to wealth or welfare and they do not intend to show income as a reward for some specific factors of production. The national accounts concepts of value and income are descriptive concepts that can only be well understood in view of the specific accounting framework to which they belong.
EQUIVALENCE SCALE SENSITIVITY OF POVERTY STATISTICS FOR THE MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
Authors: de Vos Klaas , Zaidi M. Asghar
Published: March 2005

Using microdata from Household Budget Surveys of the Member States of the European Community, this paper examines the sensitivity of poverty statistics with respect to the choice of the equivalence scale. The results show that the ranking of the countries with respect to the overall poverty incidence is hardly affected when different equivalence scales are used. However, the composition of the poor population shows considerable changes when e.g. subjective equivalence scales are used instead of the OECD equivalence scale. The poverty incidence among specific household groups, such as single elderly and households with children, is particularly sensitive to the choice of the equivalence scale.
MODELING ON THE BASIS OF MODELS
Authors: Holub Hans Werner , Tappeiner Gottfried
Published: March 2005

A large part of official economic data sets is produced with the help of assumed functional relations between variables. Constructing economic models on the basis of such model‐generated data results in a “modeling on the basis of the results of modeling.” This common procedure can lead to consequences that seriously endanger the quality of empirical analyses. After discussing some of these dangerous consequences the authors explore the reasons behind this development. To avoid some of the most severe difficulties a “Charter for Compilation and Correct Handling of Economic Data” is proposed.
NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN TRANSITION COUNTRIES: BALANCING THE BIASES?
Authors: Bloem Adriaan M. , Cotterell Paul , Gigantes Terry
Published: March 2005

In the past several years, efforts have been made to introduce the 1993 System of National Accounts (1993) SNA) in most of the formerly centrally planned economies. In doing so, a number of problems have emerged, some of which are particular to the situation of these countries. Some of these problems will probably cause overestimates of national accounts variables, others will cause underestimates, and it would be purely coincidental if these effects cancel out. This paper discusses the most disconcerting issues in this situation, and possible solutions.
A SIMPLIFIED MODEL FOR SOCIAL WELFARE ANALYSIS: AN APPLICATION TO SPAIN, 1973–74 TO 1980–81
Authors: Ruiz‐Castillo Javier
Published: March 2005

Most of the literature on income distribution has concentrated on inequality. In this paper we introduce a concern for efficiency in a social welfare model. We propose a simple but useful specification which combines three features: (i) the selection of measurement instruments in the relative and the absolute case on the grounds of their properties for applied work; (ii) a procedure to make welfare comparisons across households with different needs, in a model in which equivalence scales depend only on house‐hold size; and (iii) the use of household specific statistical price indices to make intertemporal comparisons in real terms. The methodology is applied to the study of the role of prices and demographic effects in the evolution of the standard of living in Spain from 1973–74 to 1980–81.
FLASH GROWTH ESTIMATES USING CALENDAR INFORMATION
Authors: Reininga Ted , Kazemier Brugt
Published: March 2005

In 1991 Statistics Netherlands introduced their early flash estimates of the Quarterly National Accounts. In this article we examine a new, faster flash estimate, some three to four weeks earlier. The gain is made by using a simple regression technique and incomplete data. To compensate for the lack of data, information on the number of working days and shopping days was added to the regression. The inclusion of these calendar aspects significantly affect GDP growth: 0.30 percent point extra GDP growth for one extra working day, and 0.17 percent point for one extra shopping day.

The cost of an earlier estimate is a decrease of reliability. The probability of a forecast error of over 0.5 percent point will be about 26 percent, compared to 12 percent for the official flash estimate.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR WEALTH CONCENTRATION AND MOBILITY
Authors: Quadrini Vincenzo
Published: March 2005

The paper conducts an empirical analysis of the importance of entrepreneurship for wealth concentration and mobility using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The data shows a marked concentration of wealth in the hands of entrepreneurs which is not merely a consequence of their higher incomes. The higher saving rates among entrepreneurs is one of the possible explanations for their higher asset holdings and this hypothesis is supported by the statistical tests conducted in the paper. The data also shows that entrepreneurs experience greater upward mobility in that they have a greater probability of moving to higher wealth classes, and this is not only a consequence of their higher incomes.