What Money Can't Buy: The Relevance of Income Redistribution for Functioning Levels

Sara Lelli

No RP2004-41, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: This paper relates Amartya Sen's capability approach to the literature on equivalence scales. Synthetic indicators of well-being are constructed by adjusting individual incomes for differences in functionings. An exploratory comparative application to Italian and Belgian data illustrates the model while disclosing the apparent relative contributions of monetary and non-monetary factors to changes in the functionings' level. The results suggest that income as such cannot take us very far in evaluating achievements, on account of the effect of some non-monetary factors.

Keywords: Distribution; Econometric models; Income; Poverty measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/rp2004-041.pdf (application/pdf)

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:unu:wpaper:rp2004-41

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Siméon Rapin ().