Welfare Comparisons with Bounded Equivalence Scales

The paper considers the problem of comparing income distributions for heterogeneous populations. Following Atkinson and Bourguignon (1987), we divide the population in different groups of needs and evaluate the social welfare with a utilitarian function. By considering the Generalized Pigou-Dalton principle introduced by Ebert (1995a), we find an implementable condition of dominance which allows to rank more distributions than the Bourguignon criteria (1989).