HOUSEHOLD EQUIVALENCE SCALES - THEORY VERSUS POLICY

Researchers agree that household equivalence scales are intended to me asure the variation in income needed to bring households of different composition to the same welfare level. Researchers do not agree, howev er, about how the term ''household welfare'' is to be defined. This ar ticle traces the historical and philosophical development of three dis tinct definitions. When the conceptual bases of several popular method s for the estimation of equivalence scales are explored, it becomes cl ear that advances in theoretical rigor have not always worked to bring the literature closer to answering questions of policy concern.