Income-based Measures of Average Well-being

Steve Dowrick

No RP2004-24, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: International comparisons of average national incomes omit important information about leisure, home production, health, etc. They are also bedevilled by index number problems. This paper suggests ways of combining working hours and life-expectancy with income comparisons, and shows that the fixed-price indexes of real income, such as those in the Penn World Table, substantially understate the income gaps between the poorest and richest countries.

Keywords: Comparative economics; Income; Index numbers (Economics); Life expectancy; Quality of life (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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