Review of Income and Wealth 

About: Review of Income and Wealth is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): National accounts & Income distribution. It has an ISSN identifier of 0034-6586. Over the lifetime, 1879 publications have been published receiving 61494 citations.

Equivalence scales, well‐being, inequality, and poverty: sensitivity estimates across ten countries using the luxembourg income study (lis) database

Abstract: The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database on which this article is based offers researchers exciting new possibilities for international comparisons based on household income microdata. Among the choices the LIS microdata allows a researcher, e.g. income definition, income accounting unit, etc., is the choice of family equivalence scale, a method for estimating economic well-being by adjusting income for measurable differences in need. The range of potential equivalence scales that can and are being used in the ten LIS countries and elsewhere to adjust incomes for size and related differences in need span a wide spectrum. The purpose of this paper is to review the available equivalence scales and to test the sensitivity of various income inequality and poverty measures to choice of equivalence scale using the LIS database. The results of our analysis indicate that choice of equivalence scale can sometimes systematically affect absolute and relative levels of poverty; and inequality and therefore rankings of countries (or population subgroups within countries). Because of these sensitivities, one must carefully consider summary statements and policy implications derived from cross-national comparisons of poverty and/or inequality.

A new set of international comparisons of real product and price levels estimates for 130 countries, 1950–1985

Abstract: A new set of international comparisons covering the period 1950–85 is developed here for 121 market and 9 centrally planned economies. This new so-called Penn World Table (Mark 4), a completely revised and updated expansion of an equivalent table published by the authors in 1984, draws on the data of two previously unavailable international comparison benchmark studies. This article presents a detailed description of all estimation procedures, and excerpts from the overall DATA TABLE covering two years, 1980 and 1985. Three computer diskettes accompanying this article (and also available from the authors) contain the complete 36–year, 60,000 entry DATA TABLE in a form that economizes on scarce journal space and is immediately machine-readable. For the 121 market economies, the DATA TABLE gives annually, in addition to population and exchange rates, real product and price level estimates for four different national income concepts, and for the major subaggregates, consumption, investment, and government. Only population and real gross domestic product estimates are given for the nine centrally planned economies, however. This new table is one more step toward the goal of establishing a new worldwide System of Real National Accounts.

Intangible capital and u.s. economic growth

Abstract: Published macroeconomic data traditionally exclude most intangible investment from measured GDP. This situation is beginning to change, but our estimates suggest that as much as $800 billion is still excluded from U.S. published data (as of 2003), and that this leads to the exclusion of more than $3 trillion of business intangible capital stock. To assess the importance of this omission, we add intangible capital to the standard sources-of-growth framework used by the BLS, and find that the inclusion of our list of intangible assets makes a significant difference in the observed patterns of U.S. economic growth. The rate of change of output per worker increases more rapidly when intangibles are counted as capital, and capital deepening becomes the unambiguously dominant source of growth in labor productivity. The role of multifactor productivity is correspondingly diminished, and labor's income share is found to have decreased significantly over the last 50 years.

On goods and services

Abstract: The paper is concerned with the concept, definition and measurement of a service. Although services are often dismissed as immaterial goods, they are not special kinds of goods and belong in a quite different logical category from goods. The search for appropriate units of quantity in which to measure services is not an idle metaphysical pursuit. Without quantity units there can be no prices, and most economic theory becomes irrelevant. Indeed, large parts of economic theory may be irrelevant to the analysis of services anyway, precisely because they are not goods which can be exchanged among economic units. Services are as important as goods in modern developed economies and they need to be identified and quantified properly if the measurement of economic growth and inflation is to have any meaning for the economy as a whole. The concept of a service is explained in some detail in the paper, and various ways in which services can be classified for purposes of economic analysis are elaborated. The distinction between private and public goods, or rather between private and collective services, is re-examined in the light of the general concept of a service proposed in the paper. Externalities are shown to be simply special kinds of services.

Exploring Alternative Measures of Welfare in the Absence of Expenditure Data

Abstract: We consider an asset-based alternative to the standard use of expenditures in defining well-being and poverty. Our motivation is to see if there exist simpler and less demanding ways to collect data to measure economic welfare and rank households. This is particularly important in poor regions where there is limited capacity to collect consumption, expenditure and price data. We evaluate an index derived from a factor analysis on household assets using multipurpose surveys from several countries. We find that the asset index is a valid predictor of a crucial manifestation of poverty—child health and nutrition. Indicators of relative measurement error show that the asset index is measured as a proxy for long-term wealth with less error than expenditures. Analysts may thus prefer to use the asset index as an explanatory variable or as a means of mapping economic welfare to other living standards and capabilities such as health and nutrition.