Family Income Distribution

Explanation and Policy Evaluation

Bibliographic Data

ID10177047
AuthorsRichard Layard, Antoni Zabalza
Year1979
Volume87
Issue5, Part 2
PagesS133-S161
Publication date1979-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3808 • E-ISSN: 1537-534X
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/260826
OpenAlexW4233522649
LanguageEN
Citations received8

Since individual welfare depends on family income, we ask two main questions: (1) Is family income more explicable than individual earnings? Due to assortative mating, schooling explains 20 percent of the experience-constant annual income of families, compared with under 15 percent of the experience-constant earnings of men. We explain this outcome using the model of family labor supply. We also experiment with other measures of family welfare. (2) How can policies affecting family income be evaluated? We argue that a lifetime income framework is needed here and show how different policies can be evaluated using explicit equity-efficiency tradeoffs

Assortative mating · Demographic economics · Distribution (mathematics · Earnings · Economic growth · Economics · Equity (law · Family income · Income distribution · Inequality · Labour economics · Sociology · Welfare · Demography · Finance · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

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