A metric for assessing the goodness of income distributions and the effect of price changes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fisher, FM
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/S0022-0531(03)00015-2
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 324-332
• 关键词: Income distribution; value judgments; social welfare; Price effects

摘要

Social welfare evaluation depends in part on value judgments as to income distribution. This paper proposes a metric for assessing the goodness of particular income distributions. That metric is then used to examine the effect of price changes on the goodness of a given distribution. Consider an increase in the price of a commodity that is disproportionately consumed by households with incomes that are high relative to the preferred income distribution. One naturally supposes that such a price increase will make the given income distribution appear less bad., Surprisingly, this is not invariably the case. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.