 Measuring the costs of children: parametric and semiparametric estimators1B. Melenberg and Arthur van Soest () Statistica Neerlandica, 1996, vol. 50, issue 1, 171-192 Abstract: How much additional income does a family with four children need to attain the same welfare level as a family with two children? And how much does a single person need compared to a childless couple? These questions are important in applied micro‐economics and underlie public policy on, for example, social benefits and child allowances. In microeconomics, this is known as the problem of measuring equivalence scales. We estimate these scales using two types of subjective survey information. First, we use answers to survey questions on the income required to attain a given utility level. We compare the results for the usual linear model with semiparametric estimates, in which the functional form of the relationship between required income and family size and actual income is left unspecified. Second, we use answers to the question: how satisfied are you with actual household income? We present parametric and semiparametric estimates for ordered response models explaining this discrete variable. We find that according to the second type of information, costs of children are much larger than according to the first. Date: 1996 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:stanee:v:50:y:1996:i:1:p:171-192 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Statistica Neerlandica is currently edited by Miroslav Ristic, Marijtje van Duijn and Nan van Geloven More articles in Statistica Neerlandica from Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research |
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