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The thesis delves into questions of measurement of poverty and inequality and evaluates a hypothesis behind a policy that impacts democratic rights of millions of individuals in India. The first two papers are based on the Global Consumption and Income Project (GCIP). They describe the construction of the consumption and income datasets and the evolution of material wellbeing in the last 55 years for 161 countries around the world. The third paper proposes an individual multidimensional poverty measure that takes into account intra-household inequality when measuring poverty. The last paper...

(Un-)gleichheit und Gerechtigkeit waren schon immer Kernbestandteil eines jeden politischen Konzeptes, welches das Wohl der Menschen in den Mittelpunkt rückte. Die Idee der Gleichheit ist so alt wie die der Demokratie selbst und neben instrumentellen Gründen, aus denen man (Un-)gleichheit schätzen oder ablehnen kann, ist die Existenz einer inhärenten Abneigung von Ungleichheit inzwischen ein allgemein akzeptiertes Faktum innerhalb der volkswirtschaftlichen Disziplin. Diese Dissertation trägt zur daraus folgenden Debatte um die Ursachen, Auswirkungen, und die Messung von Ungleichheit bei. Di...

A key question in the design of anti-poverty programs is to what extent they should be targeted. Empirical evaluations of targeted transfer schemes and simulation exercises often point to further gains that can be had from targeted transfers vis-à-vis universal transfers or from more narrow targeting. Theoretical work, on the other hand, has identified hidden costs associated with targeting - including politico-economic constraints on budgets - but these are frequently ignored in empirical work. In this paper we first argue that common targeting measures can be interpreted as preferences that attach specific weights to true and false positive rates. Based on data from Bolivia and Indonesia, we show that targeting based on an imperfect poverty classifier based on proxy means tests results in very distinct 'optimal' beneficiary shares when these measures are used as a decision criterion. Implications from poverty simulations are sensitive to assumptions about the political economy relationship between the beneficiary share and the available budget. In fact, in many situations, optimizing targeting measures will be misleading when the actual goal is to maximize the effect on poverty.

Gleichzeitig mit der weit verbreiteten Verwendung von traditionellen einkommens- oder konsumbasierten Maßnahmen zur Messung menschlicher Armut und Entwicklung gibt es seit den späten 70er Jahren zunehmendes Interesse an der Ökonomie des Glücks. Ebenso gibt es einen breiten Literaturbereich, der Indizes definiert und diskutiert hat, die "functionings" auf der Grundlage des "Capabilities Approach" von Sen (1985) auf sich vereinen, welche auf einer Vielzahl von ideologischen Urteilen und Zielen zur Bestimmung des objektiven Wohlbefindens (1984), S. 187) beruhen. Beide Ansätze sind ähnlich in i...

We empirically study the role of different family policies in determining women´s labor market behavior in the countries of the European Union between 1997 and 2008. Women tend to assume more family duties than men and, consequently, often participate less in the labor market. At the same time, family policies are to provide support to families while also helping women to reconcile family duties with labor market participation. Their impact, however, is not clear, especially when it comes to different forms of labor market activity. We use a static and dynamic panel econometric framework examining the link between four types of family policies and labor force participation and (part-time and full-time) employment. The results suggest no stable significant impact of any on overall labor force, but higher spending on family allowance, cash benefits daycare benefits appears to promote part-time employment, whereas only spending on parental leave schemes is a significant determinant of women's full-time employment.