Elena Bárcena-Martín

Gender and Poverty Risk in Europe

This study advances research on the structural dimension in the predominantly individual-oriented field of poverty studies by evaluating to what extent cross-national differences in population and structural characteristics can explain the differences in poverty outcomes by gender. To facilitate an approach that integrates individual and structural context dimensions, the paper takes advantage of multilevel techniques to test gender differences in the risk of being poor, entering into poverty, and exiting from poverty among seventeen European countries. The analysis covers single-adult households, drawing on data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the years 2007–8. The study concludes that structural effects, such as welfare state policies, labor market characteristics, level of inequality, and the level of womens empowerment in the country, seem to be more relevant than individual effects in explaining differences in the gender poverty gap among countries.

Country differences in material deprivation in Europe

This paper assesses to what extent differences in the individual�s characteristics (micro-level perspective) and in country-specific factors (macro-level perspective) can explain country differences with respect to material deprivation levels. Thus, our work aims to simultaneously consider the macro dimension and the predominantly individually oriented study field of material deprivation. To facilitate this integrated approach we take advantage of multilevel techniques to test differences among a large number of countries in the intensity of material deprivation. We make use of the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions. Our results show that country specific factors seem to be much more relevant than individual effects to explain country differences in material deprivation.This paper evaluates to what extent differences between countries in the composition of their population and in structural characteristics can explain country differences with respect to material deprivation. Our study aims to advance research on the structural dimension to the predominantly individually oriented study field of material deprivation. To facilitate an integrated approach of individual and structural context dimensions we took advantage of multilevel techniques to test differences among a large number of countries in the intensity of material deprivation. We make use of the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions. From our analyses, we can conclude that structural effects seem to be more relevant than individual effects to explain country differences in material deprivation.Multilevel techniquesWe can conclude that structural effects seem to be more relevant than individual effects to explain country differences in material deprivation.

On the generalization and decomposition of the Bonferroni index

A simple algorithm is proposed which defines the Bonferroni as the product of a row vector of individual population shares, a linear mathematical operator called the Bonferroni matrix and a column vector of income shares. This algorithm greatly simplifies the decomposition of the Bonferroni index by income sources or classes and population subgroups. The proposed algorithm links also the Bonferroni index to the concepts of relative deprivation and social welfare and leads to a generalization where the traditional Bonferroni and Gini indices are special cases. The paper ends with an empirical illustration based on EU-SILC data for the year 2008.

Economic cycles and child mortality: A cross-national study of the least developed countries

This paper examines the effects of growth and recession periods on child mortality in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) during the period 1990-2010. We provide empirical evidence of uneven effects of variations in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita on the evolution of child mortality rate in periods of economic recession and expansion. A decrease in GDP per capita entails a significant rise in child mortality rates, whereas an increase does not affect child mortality significantly. In this context, official development assistance seems to play a crucial role in counteracting the increment in child mortality rates in recession periods, at least in those LDCs receiving greater aid.

On the Decomposition of the Foster and Wolfson Bi‐Polarization Index by Income Sources

This paper proposes a simple algorithm based on a matrix formulation to compute the Foster and Wolfson bipolarization index and then to decompose it by income sources. An empirical illustration based on EU‐SILC data for the years 2007 and 2014 shows the usefulness of the proposed decomposition.

Inequality, welfare and order statistics

Abstract In this paper, we use the distributions of order statistics to define functions with the appropriate properties to represent social preferences regarding income distributions. Following the approach of Yaari (1987, 1988), this allows constructing a set of social welfare functions from which the corresponding inequality indices are derived. The obtained measures incorporate diverse normative criteria, with different degrees of preference for equality. The generalized Gini coefficients and the family of indices proposed by Aaberge (2000) are obtained as particular cases. This approach allows interpreting each inequality measure in terms of the statistics computed from a randomly selected sample and the identification of unbiased estimators of the Social Welfare Functions. It also shows that each of the families of inequality indices are obtained from the moments of the order statistics and, therefore, each of the families characterizes any income distribution with finite mean. This characterization is very useful in the case of distributions with heavy tail and pronounced positive skew that shows only a few potential moments.