Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/28066 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Diskussionsbeiträge No. 2007/21
Publisher: 
Freie Universität Berlin, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Berlin
Abstract: 
Income-expenditure surveys typically provide incomes on the household level. As households can differ in size and needs, a reliable assessment of inequality in living standards, therefore, necessitates the conversion of the original heterogeneous into an artificial quasi-homogeneous population. Ebert and Moyes (2003) and Shorrocks (2004) theoretically explore the properties of two alternative conversion strategies: a weighting of household equivalent incomes by size and by needs. We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study for examining the sensitivity of the Gini and the Theil index to the chosen conversion strategy, and explain our results by means of an inequality decomposition by population subgroups.
Subjects: 
income distribution
inequality
inequality decomposition
equivalence scale
JEL: 
D31
D63
I32
ISBN: 
3938369698
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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