Equivalent-Income Functions and Income-Dependent Equivalence Scales

David Donaldson and Krishna Pendakur

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Abstract: This paper presents and investigates two classes of equivalent-income functions that are generalizations of those that correspond to exact (independent-of-base) absolute and relative equivalence scales. They provide less restrictive household demands, especially for children's goods, and have associated absolute and relative equivalence scales that may depend on income. We show that, under certain conditions, equivalent-income functions and the associated income-dependent equivalence scales can be uniquely estimated from demand data. We estimate them using Canadian data and find that the resulting scales are both plausible and income dependent. In addition, the estimated scales are used to measure inequality and we find that they make a significant difference to the level and trend in measured inequality.

Keywords: CONSUMPTION; INCOME (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp99-8

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Working Paper Coordinator ().