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The subject of this chapter is the competition between two prepositional markers of the Recipient, n- (the dedicated ‘dative’ marker) and e- (basically a marker of the allative), as used with the verb ti ‘give’ and some of its derivates, especially performative verbs, in Bohairic Coptic. The preposition n-/na= appears to be appropriate when the Agent obtains control over the Recipient’s personal sphere (potency, volition, awareness or face) by a transfer of material or symbolic goods or by communicative acts. The preposition e-/ero= can appear when the Recipient’s personal sphere is not accessible for the Agent’s control or when the Agent provokes externally observable reactions of the Recipient without necessarily controlling his or her personal sphere.

This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Ireland, taking advantage of access to a dataset that is uniquely suitable for this purpose, the 1996 Structure of Earnings Survey. This allows us to measure not simply overall differentials in the average wage across sectors, but also the extent to which these are associated with a range of employee, job, employer and sectoral characteristics. The results show that there are substantial differences in earnings across industrial sectors in Ireland, predominantly but not only reflecting differences in measured human capital of workers and attributes of their jobs. While unobserved individual and job characteristics may underpin the remaining differentials, efficiency wage or rent-sharing could also be playing a role. Including a range of firm and sectoral characteristics relevant to the latter does not markedly alter the scale of inter-industry differentials, but firm fixed effects seem important. The dispersion of wages across industries, controlling for observed employee, job and employer characteristics, is quite high in Ireland compared to other industrialised countries.

Light-powered molecular machines are conjectured to be essential constituents of future nanoscale devices. As a model for such systems, we have synthesized a polymer of bistable photosensitive azobenzenes. Individual polymers were investigated by single-molecule force spectroscopy in combination with optical excitation in total internal reflection. We were able to optically lengthen and contract individual polymers by switching the azo groups between their trans and cis configurations. The polymer was found to contract against an external force acting along the polymer backbone, thus delivering mechanical work. As a proof of principle, the polymer was operated in a periodic mode, demonstrating for the first time optomechanical energy conversion in a single-molecule device.

This chapter provides the introduction to a collection of 11 comparative chapters and a concluding chapter which, based on 30 country studies (25 European, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea; reported in the companion volume Nolan et al. 2013), look at the evolution of inequalities, their social and political impacts, and national policies regarding inequality. Four chapters consider the evolution of inequalities of income and their drivers, the role of earnings and employment, the inequalities of wealth, and those of education. Four subsequent chapters address the social and political impacts in a wide range of fields, such as poverty and social exclusion, health and housing, attitudes towards inequality, trust, and political legitimacy. Next, policies of redistribution, job provision and public services are discussed in two chapters, followed by a chapter on educational policies and inequality. The chapter explains the approach and its challenges and ends with a summary overview of inequalities.

This chapter summarizes key features of 30 country case studies of the evolution of income inequality, of outcomes in the social, cultural, and political realms that might potentially be affected, and of the effectiveness of policies in mitigating or exacerbating background inequalities. The volume documented trends in inequality and relative poverty over a period of time that spans major developments across all 30 countries, politico-economic transition in some, expansive commodification, and financialization in others, deep cultural and demographic change in most. No strong evidence has been found that increasing income inequality is associated with such negative social outcomes as more crime, more family breakdown, less trust, and greater social immobility, at least in the relatively short term. It is has been repeatedly demonstrated across the country studies that inequality in income is strongly associated with inequalities in other dimensions, including health, and these deep-seated social gradients are in themselves highly undesirable.

The chapter examines policies that may help combating educational inequalities in the competences achieved (i.e. quality of education). Using cross-sectional data the chapter demonstrates a correlation between institutional characteristics of educational systems and student achievement, including early tracking, vocational orientation, and forms of national standardisation. Looking at schooling the chapter adopts a longitudinal approach to educational policies. Using newly collected data, the chapter describes various policies to combating inequality in educational attainment, both in terms of distributions and in terms of inequality of educational opportunity by social groups. The chapter considers the relationships between educational policies, educational distributions and income inequality. EU-SILC data on educational and earnings attainment with comparative student achievement data since from the 1960s, allows examining to what extent educational policies affect quality and quantity of education, and how these educational distributions relate to the level of income inequality. The chapter discusses the potential opposition to the implementation of these policies.

This chapter studies the complex relationship between income inequality and the legitimacy of politics. By focusing on outcomes concerning national and supranational politics, the chapter argues that political correlates to inequality may not only widen cleavages in political interest, attitudes to democracy, and political representation, but may additionally have serious repercussions on the legitimacy of the democratic political system. The chapter demonstrates that a potential threat to the political system originates from ill-suited representation of lower income groups, and of their interests concerning the income distribution in society. Low salience of redistributive issues is not only observed through subjective political identification, but also through unequal political representation.

This chapter demonstrates the importance of labour earnings for income and income inequality -also among top incomes. With a focus on employees and Europe, the chapter elaborates on the relationship between the household income distribution and the individual earnings distribution. On the one hand, households flatten individual inequalities of earnings, by combining employees from different levels of the earnings distribution, and of employment, by bringing people together with diverging working hours - part-time employment appears to be surprisingly evenly spread over the household earnings distribution. On the other hand, the combination of earnings and hours within the household augments household inequality of earnings and employment. The chapter scrutinises the role of dual-earner and multiple-earner households, demonstrating its importance at the top of the distribution. Multiple earning is very important in countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the chapter speculates that it may be part of household formation aimed at reducing poverty.

There has been a remarkable upsurge of debate about increasing inequalities and their societal implications, reinforced by the economic crisis but bubbling to the surface before it. This has been seen in popular discourse, media coverage, political debate, and research in the social sciences. The central questions addressed by this book, and the major research project GINI on which it is based, are: Have inequalities in income, wealth and education increased over the past 30 years or so across the rich countries, and if so why? What are the social, cultural and political impacts of increasing inequalities in income, wealth, and education? What are the implications for policy and for the future development of welfare states? In seeking to answer these questions, this book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws on economics, sociology, and political science, and applies this approach to learning from the experiences over the last three decades of European countries together with the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, and South Korea. It combines comparative research with lessons from specific country experiences, and highlights the challenges in seeking to adequately assess the factors underpinning increasing inequalities and in identify the channels through which these may impact on key social and political outcomes, as well as the importance of framing inequality trends and impacts in the institutional and policy context of the country in question.

Keeping economic inequality in check is an uphill battle, though countries differ. General drivers seem mediated, moderated, accelerated or perhaps even replaced by demographic, institutions or policy-making changes. Growing inequality is not found robustly linked to worsening social outcomes (health, deprivation, housing, social cohesion, etc.), though better longitudinal data may change this; Social stratification is manifest. Political impacts (e.g. legitimacy) seem stronger, underpinning deep concerns about political influence of the rich, feeding into policies increasing inequality. People on low incomes face effects on health, living conditions, social ties, child development. Redistributing income is imperative so as to alleviate poverty and promote equality of opportunities. Prevention policies cannot replace direct redistribution. The best performing countries have a large welfare state that invests in people, stimulating them to be active and adequately protecting them when everything else fails. This continues to offer the best prospect for rich countries pursuing growth with equality.

This chapter provides the introduction to a collection of 30 country studies (25 European, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea) of the evolution of inequalities of income, earnings and employment, wealth, and education, of their drivers as well as their social and political impacts in a wide range of fields, such as health, poverty, housing, social cohesion, trust, and political legitimacy. Policies of redistribution, job provision, and public services are also discussed. It discusses the context of scientific study and political debate of inequalities that make up the background of the thirty studies and presents the common approach that was chosen.

The chapter scrutinises wealth inequality, its measurement, trends, drivers, and relationship with income, using GINI contributions and new analysis of data and literature. The chapter finds increasing wealth inequality and polarization, although levels and trends vary widely. The comparability of wealth data is challenged by the presence of debt, lack of equivalisation, differences in wealth holdings, and exclusion of pension assets. Cross-country differences in wealth inequality seem better explained by social expenditures and debt take-up than by demographic factors and the labour market; trends are better explained by growing debt and financial assets, their fiscal treatment, and ‘superstars’. The relationship with income is not straightforward: high income inequality does not necessarily go together with high wealth inequality, and income-poor households are not always wealth-poor. Wealth should be taken into account in analysing inequality, together with income, and deeper study is needed of the role of debt.

The surface active properties of novel poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) containing surfactant polymers were investigated at the air−water and graphite−water interfaces. The surfactant polymers are combli...

This paper reassesses the validity of a poverty measure combining relative income and non-monetary deprivation indicators, first developed and applied to Irish data for 1987, in the light of experience since then and current debates. A crucial issue is whether the measure has failed to capture fundamental changes in livings patterns and expectations. A range of analyses confirm that it continues to identify a set of households experiencing distinctive levels of generalised deprivation, economic strain, psychological distress and exposure to persistent income poverty.

The interfacial behavior of a short-chain poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) lipopolymer, PEO (molecular weight 2000) grafted distearoylphosphatidylethanolamine (PEO2K-DSPE), and its mixtures with distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC) have been studied using Langmuir film balance and surface tension methods. Surface pressure−area isotherms for pure PEO2K-DSPE and PEO2K-DSPE/DSPC mixtures (with 2, 5, 10, 15, or 20 mol % of PEO2K-DSPE) revealed two phase transitions. The simple additivity in the molecular area of lipid mixtures with increasing incorporation of PEO lipopolymer below the low-pressure transition indicates the existence of a two-dimensional thin layer of PEO and lipid. The low-pressure transition is interpreted as desorption of surface-adsorbed PEO molecules into the aqueous subphase. Correlation of film balance experiments with PEO lipopolymer and surface tension experiments with PEO aqueous solutions suggests dehydration of the PEO in the lipopolymer film by expulsion of PEO-associated water molecules...

In the past several years, atomic force microscopy (AFM) has provided topographic images of adsorbed plasma proteins in situ at unprecedented resolution. Imaging has been limited to adsorbed protein on relatively smooth model substrates such as mica, graphite, or self-assembled monolayers on which the small height of the protein can be observed from the background. The inherent roughness of biomaterial surfaces has prevented observation of adsorbed proteins in topographic images. We report imaging isolated fibrinogen molecules adsorbed on National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) reference materials polydimethylsiloxane and low-density polyethylene in situ using phase imaging AFM. Fibrinogen, a plasma protein important for blood coagulation and platelet aggregation, was adsorbed from dilute solution onto reference biomaterial surfaces at sub-monolayer coverage. Tapping mode AFM was used to image the samples. For polydimethylsiloxane, the lateral size of the surface features is much greater than the dimensions of proteins. This allowed adsorbed proteins to be observed in topographic images. The phase imaging signal of tapping mode AFM provides information on differences in material properties of the surface, and was used to distinguish individual protein molecules from the underlying polymer surface. On the low-density polyethylene surface, characteristic topographical features are of the same magnitude as the protein molecules, so that protein cannot be distinguished from the surface using topographic images. However, phase images were used to successfully locate and characterize the distribution of the protein. Phase imaging was not able to distinguish fibrinogen adsorbed onto expanded polytetrafluoroethylene. The utility and limitations of the phase imaging technique for characterizing protein adsorption to rough surfaces is discussed.

The interactions between plasma proteins and platelets are responsible for surface adsorption and activation of platelets, which leads to initiation of platelet-mediated thrombotic events at biomaterial surfaces. We are seeking to gain a fundamental understanding of these interactions. The atomic force microscope (AFM) has been used to create force maps across platelets adsorbed onto collagen substrata using peptide-modified probes. Combining the imaging and force-measuring capabilities of AFM, the force-mapping mode has been used to measure interactions of peptide-modified AFM probes with the surface. Observed differences in the force of adhesion are clearly evident in the platelet samples fixed in air, proving the ability of the AFM system to map adhesion. When this system is changed to a fluid environment we are no longer able to see such evident adhesion because of the membrane flexibility; instead the deformability of the surface is mapped. The specific interaction between the peptide sequence RGD and platelets was measured in a non-mapping mode of the AFM. Although this does not provide a force map, we can see significant differences between the forces measured on the substrate and those measured with a control hexapeptide.

N-Alkylmaltonamide nonionic diblock surfactants of varying hydrophobic segment lengths were synthesized, and their surface active properties on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The N-alkylmaltonamide surfactants are composed of maltose, a hydrophilic disaccharide, with amide-linked alkyl groups of varying length, from octyl to octadecyl. All the surfactants readily adsorb uniformly onto the hydrophobic graphite surface from solution. Surfactants with alkyl lengths of 10 or more carbons exhibit epitaxial adsorption on graphite, forming ordered hemicylinders with a diameter that increases with increasing surfactant length. The solution concentration necessary for inducing surface ordering decreases with increasing alkyl chain length. N-Octadecylmaltonamide, which is insoluble in water, adsorbed from methanol solution without ordering and upon solvent replacement with water, assembled into hemicylinders. Once formed, the surfactant structures appeared st...

The objective of this study was to examine the association of the intensity of treatment, ranging from high-dose intensive factor VIII (FVIII) treatment to prophylactic treatment, with the inhibitor incidence among previously untreated patients with severe hemophilia A. This cohort study aimed to include consecutive patients with a FVIII activity < 0.01 IU/mL, born between 2000 and 2010, and observed during their first 75 FVIII exposure days. Intensive FVIII treatment of hemorrhages or surgery at the start of treatment was associated with an increased inhibitor risk (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 2.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3-3.0). High-dose FVIII treatment was associated with a higher inhibitor risk than low-dose FVIII treatment (aHR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.0-4.8). Prophylaxis was only associated with a decreased overall inhibitor incidence after 20 exposure days of FVIII. The association with prophylaxis was more pronounced in patients with low-risk F8 genotypes than in patients with high-risk F8 genotypes (aHR, 0.61, 95% CI, 0.19-2.0 and aHR, 0.85, 95% CI, 0.51-1.4, respectively). In conclusion, our findings suggest that in previously untreated patients with severe hemophilia A, high-dosed intensive FVIII treatment increases inhibitor risk and prophylactic FVIII treatment decreases inhibitor risk, especially in patients with low-risk F8 mutations.

Ireland is one of the countries most severely affected by the Great Recession. National income fell by more than 10 per cent between 2007 and 2012, as a result of the bursting of a remarkable property bubble, an exceptionally severe banking crisis, and deep fiscal adjustment. This paper examines the income distribution consequences of the recession, and identifies the impact of a broad range of austerity policies on the income distribution. The overall fall in income was just under 8 per cent between 2008 and 2011, but the greatest losses were strongly concentrated on the bottom and top deciles. Tax, welfare and public sector pay changes over the 2008 to 2012 period gave rise to lower than average losses for the bottom decile. Thus, the larger than average losses observed overall are not due to these policy changes; instead, the main driving factors are the direct effects of the recession itself. Policy changes do contribute to the larger than average losses at high income levels.

Background:Little is known about the frequency of cognitive impairment in older patients with blood cancers, nor how such impairment may contribute to their overall frailty. Understanding the prevalence of impairment is specifically important for this population, because intact cognition is needed to make complex medical decisions, including whether to pursue intensive treatments versus supportive care. We report data from the Older Adult Hematologic Malignancy (OHM) clinic at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which routinely screens patients 75 or older for frailty using tools that incorporate subjective and objective measures of cognition. Methods: Since February of 2015,all patients aged 75 and older who present for initial consultation for hematologic malignancy have been approached for evaluation by a trained clinic assistant. In a 15-minute interview, the assistant uses two parallel methods of screening to characterize the patient as frail, pre-frail or robust. The first employs a "cumulative deficit" approach (Rockwood, 2007) including a 26-item questionnaire adapted from theYale Precipitating Events Project (Searle, 2008), a grip strength test (Gill, 2006), gait speed test (Studenski, 2011), delayed recall section of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA; Nasreddine, 2005) and the Clock In Box test, a cognitive impairment screening tool (CIB; Chester, 2011). The second uses a "phenotypic" approach (Fried, 2001), which gives equal weight to the gait speed and grip strength tests, plus three questions about weight loss, energy expenditure and self-reported exhaustion. We also assess two subjective measures of cognition: (1) whether the patient knows why s/he is presenting to the hospital and (2) whether s/he needs help filling out the questionnaire. Results: As of July 1, 2016, 235 of 275 patients approached (85%) agreed to be assessed. Median age was 78 years and 37% were female; 32% were seen in the leukemia clinic, 37% in the lymphoma clinic and 31% in the myeloma clinic. More patients were determined to be definitively frail or robust by the cumulative deficit approach compared with the phenotypic approach, which categorized the majority of patients as pre-frail (Table 1). With respect to cognition, 35.4% of the cohort was found to have probable impairment and 27.3% possible impairment by CIB (Table 2). Fewer patients were found to have probable impairment (18.0%) and possible impairment (19.8%) by MOCA delayed recall. Overall, 18.5% of robust patients had possible or probable cognitive impairment by CIB, and 9.5% by MOCA delayed recall. Nearly 7% of the patients could not explain why they were presenting to the hospital; all of these patients also had probable cognitive impairment and were pre-frail or frail. Moreover, 17% of the total cohort needed assistance completing the questionnaire; half of these had probable cognitive impairment, 43% had possible impairment, and most (92.5%) were pre-frail or frail. The odds of being pre-frail or frail (phenotypic) if cognitively impaired per CIB was 1.89 (95% CI 1.073.34; p=0.03). The odds of being pre-frail or frail (phenotypic) if cognitively impaired per MOCA delayed recall was 1.86 (95% CI 1.02-3.40; p=0.04). Conclusions: Cognitive impairment was prevalent in this cohort of older patients with blood cancers, with between one- to two-thirds of patients testing as probably or possibly impaired using standard measures.A portion of patients who were robust per the brief phenotypic frailty screen were also cognitively impaired, which suggests routinely performing comprehensive frailty screening (cumulative deficit) or adding a cognitive measure such as the CIB. Compared to the phenotypic approach, the cumulative deficit approach, which incorporates specific measurement of cognitive impairment, seemed to result in further discriminaton between patients who were frail versus robust. The CIB test detected more cognitive impairment than the MOCA delayed recall, likely because it assesses both executive function and working memory, whereas the MOCA delayed recall only tests the latter. Taken together, our data suggest that cognitive impairment likely contributes significantly to overall frailty for older patients with blood cancers, and argue for routine testing for such impairment in this patient population. Disclosures Stone: Amgen: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Jansen: Consultancy; Seattle Genetics: Consultancy; Celator: Consultancy; Agios: Consultancy; Abbvie: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Karyopharm: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; ONO: Consultancy; Juno Therapeutics: Consultancy; Merck: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; Sunesis Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy; Xenetic Biosciences: Consultancy. Soiffer:Kiadis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Jazz Pharmaceuticals: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Juno: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.

Tissue engineering using stem cells is widely used to repair damaged tissues in diverse biological systems; however, this approach has met with less success in regenerating the central nervous system (CNS). In this study we optimized and characterized the surface chemistry of chitosan-based scaffolds for CNS repair. To maintain radial glial cell (RGC) character of primitive neural precursors, fibronectin was adsorbed to chitosan. The chitosan was further modified by covalently linking heparin using genipin, which then served as a linker to immobilize fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2), creating a multifunctional film. Fetal rat neural precursors plated onto this multifunctional film proliferated and remained multipotent for at least 3 days without providing soluble FGF-2. Moreover, they remained less mature and more highly proliferative than cells maintained on fibronectin-coated substrates in culture medium supplemented with soluble FGF-2. To create a vehicle for cell transplantation, a 3% chitosan solution was electrosprayed into a coagulation bath to generate microspheres (range 30-100 µm, mean 64 µm) that were subsequently modified. Radial glial cells seeded onto these multifunctional microspheres proliferated for at least 7 days in culture and the microspheres containing cells were small enough to be injected, using 23 Gauge Hamilton syringes, into the brains of adult rats that had previously sustained cortical contusion injuries. When analysed 3 days later, the transplanted RGCs were positive for the stem cell/progenitor marker Nestin. These results demonstrate that this multifunctional scaffold can be used as a cellular and growth factor delivery vehicle for the use in developing cell transplantation therapies for traumatic brain injuries. Copyright © 2013 John WileySons, Ltd.

An effective paradigm for transplanting large numbers of neural stem cells after central nervous system (CNS) injury has yet to be established. Biomaterial scaffolds have shown promise in cell transplantation and in regenerative medicine, but improved scaffolds are needed. In this study we designed and optimized multifunctional and biocompatible chitosan-based films and microspheres for the delivery of neural stem cells and growth factors for CNS injuries. The chitosan microspheres were fabricated by coaxial airflow techniques, with the sphere size controlled by varying the syringe needle gauge and the airflow rate. When applying a coaxial airflow at 30 standard cubic feet per hour, ∼300μm diameter spheres were reproducibly generated that were physically stable yet susceptible to enzymatic degradation. Heparin was covalently crosslinked to the chitosan scaffolds using genipin, which bound fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) with high affinity while retaining its biological activity. At 1μgml(-1) approximately 80% of the FGF-2 bound to the scaffold. A neural stem cell line, GFP+RG3.6 derived from embryonic rat cortex, was used to evaluate cytocompatibility, attachment and survival on the crosslinked chitosan-heparin complex surfaces. The MTT assay and microscopic analysis revealed that the scaffold containing tethered FGF-2 was superior in sustaining survival and growth of neural stem cells compared to standard culture conditions. Altogether, our results demonstrate that this multifunctional scaffold possesses good cytocompatibility and can be used as a growth factor delivery vehicle while supporting neural stem cell attachment and survival.

As part of its 2020 Strategy adopted in 2010, the EU has set a number of headline targets including one for poverty reduction over the next decade. This is a major development in the role accorded to social inclusion in the EU, and thus very important at the level of principle. However, the specific way the target itself has been framed, and the implications for approaches to implementing it, also merit careful consideration. The population identified in framing the target is persons in the member states either below a country-specific relative income poverty threshold, above a material deprivation threshold, or in a "jobless" household. This paper presents an in-depth analysis and critique of the way that target is formulated on both conceptual and empirical grounds and documents the consequence for our understanding of both cross-national and socio-economic patterning of poverty. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative approaches to combining low income and material deprivation to identify those most in need from a poverty reduction perspective.

Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) are ice binding proteins found in some plants, insects, and Antarctic fish allowing them to survive at subzero temperatures by inhibiting ice crystal growth. The interaction of AFPs with ice crystals results in a difference between the freezing and melting temperatures, termed thermal hysteresis, which is the most common measure of AFP activity. Creating antifreeze protein constructs that reduce the concentration of protein needed to observe thermal hysteresis activities would be beneficial for diverse applications including cold storage of cells or tissues, ice slurries used in refrigeration systems, and food storage. We demonstrate that conjugating multiple type I AFPs to a polyallylamine chain increases thermal hysteresis activity compared to the original protein. The reaction product is approximately twice as active when compared to the same concentration of free proteins, yielding 0.5 °C thermal hysteresis activity at 0.3 mM protein concentration. More impressively, the amount of protein required to achieve a thermal hysteresis of 0.3 °C is about 100 times lower when conjugated to the polymer (3 μM) compared to free protein (300 μM). Ice crystal morphologies observed in the presence of the reaction product are comparable to those of the protein used in the conjugation reaction.

The essential guide for students and researchers interested in economic inequality Contains 27 original research contributions from the top names in economic inequality. The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality presents a new and challenging analysis of economic inequality, focusing primarily on economic inequality in highly developed countries. Bringing together the world's top scholars this comprehensive and authoritative volume contains an impressive array of original research on topics ranging from gender to happiness, from poverty to top incomes, and from employers to the welfare state. The authors give their view on the state-of-the-art of scientific research in their fields of expertise and add their own stimulating visions on future research. Ideal as an overview of the latest, cutting-edge research on economic inequality, this is a must have reference for students and researchers alike. Readership: Students, researchers, and policy makers with an interest in the economics of inequality and more generally those in related disciplines of development studies, politics, business, demography, and sociology.

This paper addresses the key issue for the GINI project of how best to approach the measurement of income inequality and wage inequality to enhance comparability across different studies. It focuses fi rst on income inequality, dealing with the defi nition of income, the income recipient unit, and the unit of analysis. The summary measures used to capture inequality are also discussed, with an emphasis on capturing trends at different points in the distribution, and sources for comparative data on inequality levels and trends are discussed. The paper then turns to inequality in earnings among employees and discusses the same set of issues in that context. The above bears directly on any analysis of inequality itself but it is also important for an analysis of the direct impacts of inequality at micro-level. For a (multilevel) analysis based on aggregate inequality as an input the paper provides an understanding of the need for comparable concepts and defi nitions across countries and links to data sources as well as aggregate levels. It also links to practical experiences of researchers with different datasets. For this and the datasets see the Data Portal at: http://www.gini-research.org.

Working-age households where no-one is in work have become an increasing focus of policy concern even before the economic crisis, and the EU has included household joblessness in its new poverty reduction target for 2020. This paper focuses on the variation across EU countries in the prevalence of household joblessness and its impact on income poverty and deprivation, and on the implications for the new EU poverty reduction target. It brings out fi rst that there are some divergences across key data sources in the extent of joblessness. The prevalence of household joblessness varies substantially across EU countries, but there is little evidence of a consistent pattern among groupings of countries often categorised together in terms of welfare regime or geographically. In aggregate there is little association between the overall extent of household joblessness in a country and the percentage in relative income poverty or above a material deprivation threshold. At micro level, being in a jobless household has a substantial impact on the likelihood of being in relative income poverty or deprived, but the scale of these impacts is shown to be very much greater in some countries than in others, and to vary between single-adult and multiple-adult households. In most EU countries little more than half the working age adults in jobless households are either income poor or deprived, so including joblessness in the poverty reduction target does make a difference, without a clearly-articulated rationale.