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Proposing indicators to measure achievement and shortfall inequality consistently

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  • Lasso de la Vega, Casilda
  • Aristondo, Oihana

Abstract

In several economic fields, such as those related to health or education, the individuals’ characteristics are measured by bounded variables. Accordingly, these characteristics may be indistinctly represented by achievements or shortfalls. A difficulty arises when inequality needs to be assessed. One may focus either on achievements or on shortfalls but the respective inequality rankings may lead to contradictory results. In this note we propose a procedure to define indicators that measure equally the achievement and shortfall inequality. Specifically, we derive measures which are invariant under ratio-scale or translation transformations, and a decomposable measure is also obtained. As the indicators proposed depend on the distribution bounds, families of indices that guarantee the same inequality rankings regardless of the distribution maximal levels are identified.

Suggested Citation

  • Lasso de la Vega, Casilda & Aristondo, Oihana, 2012. "Proposing indicators to measure achievement and shortfall inequality consistently," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 578-583.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:31:y:2012:i:4:p:578-583
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.02.006
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Kjellsson, Gustav, 2014. "Extending Decomposition Analysis to Account for Socioeconomic Background: Income-Related Smoking Inequality among Swedish Women," Working Papers 2014:29, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Kjellsson, Gustav & Gerdtham, Ulf-G., 2013. "On correcting the concentration index for binary variables," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 659-670.
    3. Satya R. Chakravarty & Nachiketa Chattopadhyay & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2016. "On a Family of Achievement and Shortfall Inequality Indices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(12), pages 1503-1513, December.
    4. Gaston Yalonetzky, 2020. "Inequality of ratios," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(2), pages 193-217, August.
    5. Oihana Aristondo & Francisco J. Goerlich Gisbert & Casilda Lasso De La Vega, 2015. "A Proposal to Compare Consistently the Inequality Among the Poor," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 561-572, September.
    6. Suman Seth & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2016. "Has the world converged? A robust analysis of non-monetary bounded indicators," Working Papers 398, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Sam Harper & Eric Ruder & Henry A. Roman & Amelia Geggel & Onyemaechi Nweke & Devon Payne-Sturges & Jonathan I. Levy, 2013. "Using Inequality Measures to Incorporate Environmental Justice into Regulatory Analyses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-21, August.
    8. Mohammad Abu‐Zaineh & Ramses H. Abul Naga, 2023. "Bread and Social Justice: Measurement of Social Welfare and Inequality Using Anthropometrics," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(2), pages 265-288, June.
    9. Nanak Kakwani & Hyun H. Son, 2015. "Income inequality and social well-being," Working Papers 380, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    10. Gustav Kjellsson & Ulf-G. Gerdtham, 2013. "Lost in Translation: Rethinking the Inequality Equivalence Criteria for Bounded Health Variables," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 3-32, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Kristof Bosmans, 2016. "Consistent Comparisons of Attainment and Shortfall Inequality: A Critical Examination," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1425-1432, November.
    12. Iñaki Permanyer, 2016. "Measuring Achievement and Shortfall Improvements in a Consistent Way," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 758-774, December.
    13. Yalonetzky, Gaston, 2022. "Consistent and inconsistent inequality indices for ordinal variables," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    14. Inaki Permanyer & Suman Seth & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2022. "Inequality measurement for bounded variables," Working Papers 602, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality measurement; Health inequality; Achievements; Shortfalls;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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