Per-capita income versus household-need adjusted income: a cross-country comparison

Abstract

We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study in order to quantify the economy-wide monetary gains achieved by Household-Size Economies, due to the within-household sharing of goods by individuals living in multi-member households. In most of the twenty countries we examine, we observe a decline in monetary gains achieved by Household-Size Economies over time. This decline is the result of a demographic trend towards smaller-sized household units, rather than a change in the shares of aggregate disposable income earned by household types of different size.