Now showing 1 - 10 of 76
  • Publication
    Mind the Gap: Revisiting the Concentration Index for Overweight
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2017-10)
    Much analysis of the socioeconomic gradient of overweight/obesity has involved the calculation of concentration indices for the incidence of these conditions. However this analysis ignores the severity of the conditions, in particular whether there is a gradient to how far are people above the relevant thresholds. Calculation of the concentration index for severity based measures for a dataset for Ireland reveals a much stronger gradient than for the incidence based measures. It is recommended that analysis of severity should always accompany analysis of the incidence of overweight/obesity.
      190
  • Publication
    How does unemployment affect direct and indirect tax reform?
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 1994-04)
    This paper incorporates the stylised fact of labour market rationing into an analysis of marginal tax reform in Ireland. In the absence of weak separability between goods and leisure, labour market rationing will have both substitution and income effects. This paper estimates "matched pairs" of demands for Ireland and investigates the sensitivity of marginal tax reform recommendations to the presence of rationing, both with without weak separability between goods and leisure.
      198
  • Publication
    A profile of obesity in Ireland, 2002-2007
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2010-03)
    Using the nationally representative Slan dataset we take a number of approaches to profile the change in obesity in Ireland over the 2002-2007 period. There is no evidence of either first or second order stochastic dominance between the two years. There is evidence that obesity and overweight are relatively more concentrated amongst males, the old and those with lower educational achievement. While obesity rose slightly over the period this was due to a rise in the average level of body mass index rather than a change in the shape of the distribution. Finally a semi-parametric decomposition of the change in the distribution over time indicates that the change in obesity arose not because of changes in population characteristics but rather the in the impact of these characteristics on body mass index.
      487
  • Publication
      125
  • Publication
    Growth and inequality in Ireland : 1987 - 1999
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2005-09) ;
    This paper analyses data from the Irish Household Budget Surveys of 1987, 1994 and 1999 to examine the evolution of inequality of income and expenditure over that period. The paper calculates Lorenz and Generalised Lorenz curves and also the Growth Incidence Curve of Ravallion and Chen to investigate the extent to which growth was “pro-poor”. The paper also examines the composition of changes in inequality of income over the period.
      243
  • Publication
    Labour supply, commodity demand and marginal tax reform
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 1993-12)
    This paper examines the implications of extending the Ahmad-Stern (1984) model of indirect tax reform to include labor supply. The inclusion of labor supply alters the basic measure of marginal revenue cost of indirect taxation and introduces the possibility of calculating a marginal revenue cost for direct taxation. The paper derives the expressions for these revised marginal revenue costs and provides estimates from Irish data. It then examines the sensitivity of the results to assumptions regarding functional form and, in particular, goods/leisure separability.
      623
  • Publication
    The Base of Party Political Support in Ireland: A New Approach
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2016-08)
    Party politics in Ireland has been characterised as politics without a social base. This paper calculates political concentration indices for party support in Ireland showing how support for a particular party is concentrated according to identifiable dimensions such as income, education and age. Using data from the European Social Survey, these indices are calculated with respect to elections in 2002, 2007 and 2011. There is evidence of a clear social base emerging after the 2011 election with support for the Fine Gael party concentrated amongst the richer and more educated, while support for Sinn Fein is concentrated amongst lower income and less educated. Preliminary data from the 2016 election is consistent with these developments.
      238
  • Publication
    Methods for studying dominance and inequality in population health
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2012-02)
    This paper reviews methods for studying dominance and inequality in health economics. It concentrates on “pure inequality” as opposed to inequality which is related to income or some other measure of household resources. The paper reviews methods for cases when health can be measured cardinally and ordinally. There is also a brief review of statistical inference in this area.
      164
  • Publication
    The Poverty Effects of a “Fat-Tax” in Ireland
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2013-03)
    To combat growing levels of obesity, health related taxes have been suggested with taxes on foods high in fat or sugar. Such taxes have been criticised on the basis of their regressivity and potentially adverse impact upon poverty. This paper analyses the effect of such taxes on a range of poverty measures and also examines the effect of a revenue-neutral tax subsidy mix with a tax on unhealthy food combined with a subsidy on more healthy food. Using Irish expenditure data, the results indicate that taxes on high fat/sugar goods on their own will be regressive but that a tax-subsidy combination can be broadly neutral with respect to poverty.
      821