Book excerpt: In a closed economy, income is created in production with the aid of factors such as land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Production takes place within different firms and government organizations, and, at the same time, income is created and distributed to income units. From this process, a pattern of distribution emerges that has been found to be stable over time and space. This feature of income distribution has provoked a number of alternative theories explaining the generation of income. The present study focuses on the following issues: (a) income distribution functions, (b) measurement of the degree of income inequality, (c) government policies affecting personal distribution of income, and (d) measurement of poverty.