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THE DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND EXPENDITURE IN PORTUGAL: 1980 AND 1990
Author(s) -
Govela Miguel,
Tavares José
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4991.1995.tb00090.x
Subject(s) - economics , inequality , portuguese , lorenz curve , distribution (mathematics) , income distribution , welfare , european union , econometrics , economic inequality , demographic economics , macroeconomics , labour economics , gini coefficient , international economics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , philosophy , linguistics , market economy
From 1980 to 1990 Portugal experienced a generalized liberalization of economic activity, due in large part to its 1986 integration in the European Union. This paper studies the changes in the Portuguese distribution of household income and expenditure during this period, using micro‐data on household budgets and applying recent developments in statistical inference for Lorenz curves. We find a significant increase in six measures of welfare and an unambiguous decrease in the inequality of the respective distributions. Different explanations for the findings of decreased inequality are discussed.