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This analytical tool illustrates the concept of social welfare and the possible ways to define social welfare functions. In particular, it deals with how to pass from inequality to social welfare analysis and how social welfare analysis may embody different attitudes with regard to inequality aversion. A step-by-step procedure and numerical examples are also discussed to give operational content to the tool.

For more information, see also:

• Charting Income Inequality. The Lorenz Curve. EASYPol Series 000
• Social Welfare Analysis of Income Distributions: Ranking Income Distributions with Lorenz Curves. EASYPol Series 001
• Social Welfare Analysis of Income Distributions: Ranking Income Distributions with Generalised Lorenz Curves. EASYPol Series 002
• Inequality Analysis: The Gini Index. EASYPol Series 040

This paper is part of the FAO Policy series: EASYPol-Resources for policy making (in agriculture, rural development and food security). To find other EASYPol series' resources, go to the Policy Support and Governance website>Resources and type "EASYPol" in the free text search.