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Income-based Measures of Average Well-being

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  • Steve Dowrick

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Dowrick, 2004. "Income-based Measures of Average Well-being," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-24, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:rp2004-24
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    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/rp2004-024.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hal R. Varian, 1983. "Non-parametric Tests of Consumer Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(1), pages 99-110.
    2. Dowrick, Steve & Quiggin, John, 1994. "International Comparisons of Living Standards and Tastes: A Revealed-Preference Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 332-341, March.
    3. Bela Balassa, 1964. "The Purchasing-Power Parity Doctrine: A Reappraisal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(6), pages 584-584.
    4. Dowrick, Steve & Quiggin, John, 1997. "True Measures of GDP and Convergence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 41-64, March.
    5. Samuelson, Paul A, 1984. "Second Thoughts on Analytical Income Comparisons," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(374), pages 267-278, June.
    6. Nancy Folbre & Julie A. Nelson, 2000. "For Love or Money--Or Both?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 123-140, Fall.
    7. Robert Summers & Alan Heston, 1991. "The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 327-368.
    8. Eisner, Robert, 1988. "Extended Accounts for National Income and Product," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 1611-1684, December.
    9. Dowrick, Steve & Dunlop, Yvonne & Quiggin, John, 2003. "Social indicators and comparisons of living standards," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 501-529, April.
    10. Jerry Hausman, 2003. "Sources of Bias and Solutions to Bias in the Consumer Price Index," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    11. Steve Dowrick & Muhammad Akmal, 2005. "Contradictory Trends In Global Income Inequality: A Tale Of Two Biases," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(2), pages 201-229, June.
    12. Charles L. Schultze, 2003. "The Consumer Price Index: Conceptual Issues and Practical Suggestions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    13. Hill, Robert J., 2000. "Measuring substitution bias in international comparisons based on additive purchasing power parity methods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 145-162, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Paul Johnson & Chris Papageorgiou, 2020. "What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 129-175, March.
    2. Cifuentes, Myriam Patricia & Doogan, Nathan J. & Fernandez, Soledad A. & Seiber, Eric E., 2016. "Factors shaping Americans’ objective well-being: A systems science approach with network analysis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1018-1039.

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