This paper examines multidimensional stochastic dominance when one of the indicators of well-being, such as household size or place of residence, is qualitative. It also uses a test for strict dominance based on the empirical likelihood ratio. Empirical applications are based on the DHS...

Assessing the progressivity of a fiscal system is relevant to develop a global idea on the extent of redistribution. In this paper we assess the evolution of progressivity over time and how economic shocks and government fiscal policy affects its design. The social performance of fiscal...

This paper reassesses the case for temporary emigration of unskilled workers as a solution to the child labor problem, based upon a general equilibrium model of migrant remittances, parental investment in child schooling, and intersectoral allocation of capital. Counterfactual simulations...

We study the effect of an asymmetric environment on risk sharing. In our model, entrepreneurs consider undertaking risky projects in the real sector as well as selling part of their projects to investors. To capture the idea of an asymmetric environment, the returns on the alternative risk-free...

Education is often promoted as the solution to poverty in the developing world. Yet, fiscal discipline has led to reductions in public spending on education. We examine the poverty impacts of a cut in public subsidies to higher education, accompanied by corresponding tax cuts, in a general...

The paper examines the redistributive effect achieved by the tax-benefit system in Mexico in 2012 using personal income tax, indirect taxes, social security contributions and social benefits. Our goal is to analyze progressivity of the fiscal system and go further to demonstrate how the...

This paper provides a method to make robust multidimensional poverty comparisons when one or more of the dimensions of well-being or deprivation is discrete. Sampling distributions for the statistics used in these poverty comparisons are provided. Several examples show that the methods are both...

This paper brings a general network analysis to a wide class of economic games. A network, or interaction matrix, tells who directly interacts with whom. A major challenge is determining how network structure shapes overall outcomes. We have a striking result. Equilibrium conditions depend on a...

Building on Kihlstrom and Mirman (1974)’s formulation of risk aversion in the case of multidimensional utility functions, we study the effect of risk aversion on optimal behavior in a general consumer’s maximization problem under uncertainty. We completely characterize the relationship...

Decomposing inequality indices across household groups or income source is useful in estimating the contribution of each component to total inequality. This can help policy makers draw efficient policies to reduce disparities in the distribution of incomes using targeting tools. Decomposing...