Relative Deprivation, Reference Groups and the Assessment of Standard of Living

Silber, Jacques ; Verme, Paolo

关键词: AVERAGE INCOME;    AVERAGE INCOMES;    BORROWING;    CROSS-COUNTRY DIFFERENCES;    DATA SET;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5930
RP-ID  :  WPS5930

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper proposes two new indices ofrelative deprivation, derived from an extension of theconcept of the generalized Gini for the measurement ofdistributional change. Population- and income-weightedrelative deprivation indices are then defined and, usingpanel data from the Consortium of Household Panels forEuropean Socio-Economic Research, this paper checks which ofthe various ways of defining individual deprivation bestfits the answers given by individuals on the degree of theirsatisfaction with income. The analysis finds that thedeprivation indices proposed are consistently and negativelycorrelated with income satisfaction as reported byrespondents, that income weighted measures fit better thanpopulation weighted measures, and that this fit improveswith countries that experienced deep institutional changessuch as the transitional economies of Eastern Europe.