How may we compare income distributions? What is poverty and how much of it is there? What are the characteristics of a "good" income tax and what constitutes an "improvement" in an income tax? Broadly speaking, who gets what, and more importantly who should get what? This book provides a synthesis of the many strands of distributional analysis used in the fields of social policy, welfare theory and public finance. Using only basic constructions from calculus, probability and the economics of consumer behaviour, it develops a consistent mathematical approach into a self-contained and unified treatment of the distribution and redistribution of income.
Author Biography
Peter Lambert is Professor of Economics at the University of York -- .