Welfare Costs of Inflation on Different Income Deciles of Isfahan Urban Households

Abstract

Price change is the most important element in explaining the change of consumer welfare. Increase in prices decrease real revenue of consumers and by effect on consumer’s purchasing power, influence their poverty and welfare. Thing that helps governments in suitable policy-making for reducing poverty and protection of consumer welfare, is awareness from welfare loss resulting from changing in prices. In this paper, amount of welfare loss after increase in prices for various income deciles of urban households of Isfahan, is computed. For this, linear expenditure system by seemingly unrelated regression method is estimated by using data of income and expenditure of urban households during 2004-2011. And then amount of supernumerary expenditures, marginal propensity to consume out of supernumerary expenditures and the mental poverty line are computed. Compensation variations and equivalent variations in each of eight groups of commodity and service and also in each of ten income deciles are computed. Results show that increase in prices of foods, dwelling, transportation, miscellaneous commodity, health and treatment, clothes and shoes, furnitures, entertainments and education respestively lead to most welfare loss.

Keywords

• auto economic welfare
• linear expenditur system
• compensation variation
• equivalent variation
• different income deciles of isfahan urban households