The Measurement of Individual Well-Being and Group Inequalities Essays in Memory of Z. M. Berrebi Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy Series

Although most traditional economic theory puts the individual at the centre of analysis, more recent approaches have acknowledged the importance of a wider sense of identity as a determinant of individual behaviour. Whether it is ethnicity, religion or gender, group membership is a central part of human life. This book presents new advances in areas which consider both the individual and the group when measuring inequalities and well-being.

The first part of the book covers topics such as relative deprivation and happiness, domains where even economists have now recognized the importance of reference groups in the assessment of individuals? well-being. The second part is devoted to the concept of polarization, a growing field of inquiry among economists. The third part looks at income and wage intra-generational mobility, while the fourth part reports on recent advances in measuring the significant differences between and within groups. The book concludes with several chapters devoted to poverty and social exclusion, stressing in particular the need for a multidimensional approach to these topics.

This collection offers a fresh look at the way individual well-being should be measured, by emphasizing the role of reference groups and the idea of polarization, as well as stressing the impact on well-being of changes over time to the relative position of individuals. This book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the field of development economics, inequality and poverty.

Foreword: Peter LambertIntroduction:Joseph Deutsch and Jacques SilberPart 1: Deprivation, Happiness and Well-Being 1. A Survey on Income Deprivation Conchita D'Ambrosio 2. Happiness, Deprivation and the Alter Ego Paolo Verme Part 2: Polarization 3. Measuring Bi-Polarization and Polarization: A Survey Zoya Nissanov, Ambra Poggi and Jacques Silber 4. Inequality and Polarization: An Axiomatic Approach Satya R. Chakravarty, Nachiketa Chattopadhyay and Bhargav Maharaj 5. Rank-Dependent Measures of Bi-polarization and Marginal Tax Reforms Paul Makdissi and Stéphane Mussard 6. Analyzing the Impact of Income Sources on Changes in Bi-Polarization Joseph Deutsch and Jacques SilberPart 3: Distributional Change and Mobility 7. Distributional Change Frank Cowell 8. Galton's Fallacy and the Measurement of Wage Mobility Michal WeberPart 4: On the Decomposition of Income and Wage Inequality 9. The Gini Inequality Index Decomposition: an Evolutionary Study Giovanni Maria Giorgi 10. On the Shapley Value and Decompositions of the Gender Gap Osnat Israeli 11. A Note on the Determinants of Wage Inequality Between and Within Genders Giovanni Ferro-LuzziPart 5: Individual Well-Being and Poverty 12. A New Model for Constructing Poverty Thresholds Nanak Kakwani 13. Comparing Multidimensional Poverty With Qualitative Indicators of Well-Being Yélé Maweki Batana and Jean-Yves Duclos 14. Empirical Modeling of Deprivation Contagion Among Social Exclusion Dimensions Ambra Poggi and Xavier Ramos

Joseph Deutsch and Jacques Silber are Professors of Economics at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.