Logo
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

Two Scales, One Methodology - Expenditure Based Equivalence Scales for the United States and Germany

Merz, Joachim and Garner, Thesia and Smeeding, Timothy M. and Faik, Jürgen and Johnson, David (1994): Two Scales, One Methodology - Expenditure Based Equivalence Scales for the United States and Germany.

[thumbnail of MPRA_paper_7233.pdf]
Preview
PDF
MPRA_paper_7233.pdf

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Choosing an appropriate equivalence scale is a prerequisite for comparisons of economic wellbeing income distribution, inequality or poverty. This is true for country specific work or for cross-national comparisons. Researchers generally either use a country specific equivalence scale (social assistance, expert based, or poverty scales), or adopt a single scale for all comparison across countries. Here we follow a different approach. We use microdata to estimate equivalence scales based on a revealed preference consumption approach for West Germany and the United States. We review several approaches and rely on a complete demand system approach, which provides constant utility based equivalence scales using an extended linear expenditure system (ELES). The multiple equation expenditure system takes into account a full market basket with all its interdependencies and relative prices. Our consumption-based equivalence results are compared to alternative consumption based measures, expert based measures, and subjective based measures in use in both countries and to other scales used for cross-national comparisons.

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact us: mpra@ub.uni-muenchen.de

This repository has been built using EPrints software.

MPRA is a RePEc service hosted by Logo of the University Library LMU Munich.