Senior Research Associate Martina Pezer participated in the Nineteenth Winter School on Inequality and Collective Welfare Theory (IT19), held from 6 to 10 January 2026, organised by the University of Verona and partner institutions.

As part of the programme, she presented the research Consumption Patterns, Inflation, and Household Welfare: Demand-Based Equivalence Scales in Europe, which revisits expert equivalence scales used in Europe to adjust household income according to household size and composition. The study is based on the estimation of demand-based equivalence scales for 23 European countries, using microdata from the Household Budget Survey.

The results suggest stronger economies of scale compared to the modified OECD scale, while additional analyses indicate that the inflation shock has likely further reduced equivalence scales, particularly for households with children. The findings confirm that the choice of equivalence scale can significantly affect poverty and inequality estimates, highlighting the importance of regularly updating these scales and presenting indicators under different assumptions.

During the winter school, participants acquired additional knowledge in the field of inequality and social welfare analysis and engaged in discussions on key challenges facing contemporary societies, including social mobility from a historical perspective, norms and their implications for inequalities, as well as gene-environment interactions and inequalities.

The knowledge and skills acquired represent an important enhancement for further scientific research, particularly in the area of quantitative analysis of inequality and social welfare.

Participation in the winter school was funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021-2026 – NextGenerationEU.