Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/192728 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers No. 746
Publisher: 
Statistics Norway, Research Department, Oslo
Abstract: 
The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of including the value of public health care, longterm care, education and childcare on estimates of income inequality and financial poverty in 23 European countries. The valuation of public services and the identification of target groups rely on group-specific accounting data for each of the 23 countries. To account for the fact that the receipt of public services like education and care for the elderly is associated with particular needs, we introduce a theory-based common equivalence scale for European countries, termed the needsadjusted EU scale (or NA scale). Even though the ranking of countries by estimates of overall inequality and poverty proves to be only slightly affected by the choice between the conventional EU scale and the NA scale, poverty estimates by household types are shown to be significantly affected by the choice of equivalence scale.
Subjects: 
Income distribution
Poverty
Public services
In-kind transfers
Needs adjustment
Equivalence scales
JEL: 
D31
I10
I20
I32
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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