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The Social Significance Of Income Distribution Statistics

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  • Ragnar Bentzel

Abstract

In both political discussions and scientific literature the income distribution has come to occupy a central position for the consideration of social welfare and economic equalization. It has been assumed that an individual's income reflects his consumption opportunities and therefore his standard of living or economic welfare. The thesis of this paper is, however, that there are reasons for being quite pessimistic about drawing meaningful conclusions from income distribution data. As illustrated by the use of Swedish data, the distribution of income gives an extremely incomplete picture of the distribution of consumption for a wide variety of definitional and statistical reasons. The distribution of consumption, furthermore, cannot be transformed into a corresponding distribution of welfare, since there is no well defined concept of welfare. The treatment of public consumption in empirical analysis of the distribution of welfare also raises problems. The paper closes with the presentation of the conceptual basis for an alternative to the traditional method of analyzing the distribution of income.

Suggested Citation

  • Ragnar Bentzel, 1970. "The Social Significance Of Income Distribution Statistics," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 16(3), pages 253-264, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:16:y:1970:i:3:p:253-264
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4991.1970.tb00701.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Giovanni Maria Giorgi, 2005. "A methodological survey of recent studies for the measurement of inequality of economic welfare carried out by some Italian statisticians," Econometrics 0509007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Sen, Amartya,, 1978. "Three notes on the concept of poverty," ILO Working Papers 991757103402676, International Labour Organization.

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