Compare methods

	Equivalence Scale Analysis	Atkinson Index
Field	Economics	Sociology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1980	1970
Originator	Foundations in Deaton & Muellbauer (1980); cross-country sensitivity by Buhmann et al. (1988)	Anthony Barnes Atkinson
Type	Welfare-comparability adjustment	Welfare-based, parameterized inequality index
Seminal source	Deaton, A., & Muellbauer, J. (1980). Economics and Consumer Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521296762	Atkinson, A. B. (1970). On the measurement of inequality. Journal of Economic Theory, 2(3), 244–263.
Aliases	Equivalence Scales, Household Equivalence Scale, OECD Equivalence Scale, Adult Equivalent Scale	Atkinson inequality measure, Atkinson's A, welfare-based inequality index
Related	3	5
Summary	Equivalence scales convert a household's total income or consumption into a measure of the living standard of its members, adjusting for the fact that larger households need more resources but also share them — there are economies of scale in housing, utilities, and durables, and children typically cost less than adults. Dividing household resources by the scale yields equivalized income, the per-equivalent-adult quantity that makes welfare comparable across households of different size and composition. The theory traces to Deaton and Muellbauer's treatment in Economics and Consumer Behavior (1980), and Buhmann and colleagues' 1988 cross-country study showed that inequality and poverty rankings can be strikingly sensitive to which scale is chosen.	The Atkinson index is a welfare-based measure of inequality that incorporates an explicit, analyst-chosen parameter for how much society dislikes inequality. Introduced by Anthony Atkinson in 1970, it asks what fraction of total income could be discarded, under an equal distribution, while leaving social welfare unchanged — making the ethical judgement behind any inequality comparison transparent rather than hidden.