IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/matsoc/v120y2022icp8-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On a new class of continuous indices of inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Chan, Terence

Abstract

The Gini index is a well-known and long-established measure of inequality for distributions of income and other quantities. However, it has a number of mathematical disadvantages. Firstly, it is discontinuous with respect to all the main modes of convergence of probability measures. Secondly, it relies critically on the finiteness of the mean of the underlying distribution. Finally, even when the underlying distribution has a finite mean, estimation of the Gini index from data can be problematic if the variance of the underlying distribution is infinite. In this paper, we propose a class of inequality indices which are continuous with respect to setwise convergence of probability measures (and hence also with respect to convergence in total variation) and which do not require the underlying distribution to possess any finite moments whatsoever. Moreover, our class of inequality indices can be easily estimated from data and the standard methods of statistical inference can be applied to the estimators.

Suggested Citation

  • Chan, Terence, 2022. "On a new class of continuous indices of inequality," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 8-23.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:matsoc:v:120:y:2022:i:c:p:8-23
    DOI: 10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2022.08.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165489622000695
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2022.08.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ebert, Udo, 2010. "The decomposition of inequality reconsidered: Weakly decomposable measures," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 94-103, September.
    2. Fields, Gary S, 1993. "Inequality in Dual Economy Models," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1228-1235, September.
    3. Buhong Zheng, 2021. "Stochastic dominance and decomposable measures of inequality and poverty," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(2), pages 228-247, April.
    4. repec:zbw:hohpro:325 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    6. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    7. Romano, Joseph P. & Wolf, Michael, 2000. "A more general central limit theorem for m-dependent random variables with unbounded m," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 115-124, April.
    8. Chakravarty, Satya R, 1988. "Extended Gini Indices of Inequality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 29(1), pages 147-156, February.
    9. Fontanari, Andrea & Taleb, Nassim Nicholas & Cirillo, Pasquale, 2018. "Gini estimation under infinite variance," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 502(C), pages 256-269.
    10. Jacka, S. D. & Roberts, G. O., 1997. "On strong forms of weak convergence," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 41-53, April.
    11. Muliere, Pietro & Scarsini, Marco, 1989. "A note on stochastic dominance and inequality measures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 314-323, December.
    12. James E. Foster & Artyom A. Shneyerov, 1999. "A general class of additively decomposable inequality measures," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 14(1), pages 89-111.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chan, Terence, 2024. "Coherence of inequality measures with respect to partial orderings of income distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 90-99.
    2. Bertoli-Barsotti, Lucio & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz & Żogała-Siudem, Barbara, 2024. "Gini-stable Lorenz curves and their relation to the generalised Pareto distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. I. Josa & A. Aguado, 2020. "Measuring Unidimensional Inequality: Practical Framework for the Choice of an Appropriate Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 541-570, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Satya R. Chakravarty & Pietro Muliere, 2003. "Welfare indicators: A review and new perspectives. 1. Measurement of inequality," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 457-497.
    4. Sorger, Gerhard & Stark, Oded, 2013. "Income redistribution going awry: The reversal power of the concern for relative deprivation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-9.
    5. Kleiber, Christian, 1997. "The existence of population inequality measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 39-44, November.
    6. Maria Ana Lugo & Esfandiar Maasoumi, 2008. "Multidimensional Poverty Measures from an Information Theory Perspective," Working Papers 85, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Eva Camacho-Cuena & Tibor Neugebauer & Christian Seidl, 2007. "Leaky Buckets Versus Compensating Justice: An Experimental Investigation," Working Papers 74, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    8. Satya Chakravarty, 2001. "The Variance as a subgroup decomposable measure of inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 79-95, January.
    9. Safari, Muhammad Aslam Mohd & Masseran, Nurulkamal & Ibrahim, Kamarulzaman & Hussain, Saiful Izzuan, 2021. "Measuring income inequality: A robust semi-parametric approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 562(C).
    10. Frank A Cowell, 2003. "Theil, Inequality and the Structure of Income Distribution," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 67, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    11. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1998. "Social evaluation functions, economic isolation and the Suits index of progressivity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 103-121, July.
    12. Ramses H. Abul Naga, 2018. "Measurement of inequality with a finite number of pay states: the majorization set and its applications," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(1), pages 99-123, January.
    13. Judith Clarke & Nilanjana Roy, 2012. "On statistical inference for inequality measures calculated from complex survey data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 499-524, October.
    14. Francesca Greselin & Ričardas Zitikis, 2018. "From the Classical Gini Index of Income Inequality to a New Zenga-Type Relative Measure of Risk: A Modeller’s Perspective," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, January.
    15. Suman Seth, Sabina Alkire, 2014. "Measuring and Decomposing Inequality among the Multidimensionally Poor Using Ordinal Data: A Counting Approach," OPHI Working Papers 68, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    16. John Creedy & S. Subramanian, 2023. "Exploring A New Class of Inequality Measures and Associated Value Judgements: Gini and Fibonacci-Type Sequences," Sankhya B: The Indian Journal of Statistics, Springer;Indian Statistical Institute, vol. 85(1), pages 110-131, May.
    17. Saurabh Mishra & Bilal M. Ayyub, 2019. "Shannon Entropy for Quantifying Uncertainty and Risk in Economic Disparity," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(10), pages 2160-2181, October.
    18. Camacho Cuena, Eva & Neugebauer, Tibor & Seidl, Christian, 2005. "Compensating justice beats leaky buckets: an experimental investigation," Economics Working Papers 2005-06, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    19. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia, 2008. "The ‘Extended’ Atkinson family: The class of multiplicatively decomposable inequality measures, and some new graphical procedures for analysts," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(2), pages 211-225, June.
    20. Satya Chakravarty & Swami Tyagarupananda, 2009. "The subgroup decomposable intermediate indices of inequality," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 83-97, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gini index; Measures of inequality;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:matsoc:v:120:y:2022:i:c:p:8-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505565 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.