IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v49y2020i2p526-561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparisons Between Poorest and Richest to Measure Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Youri Davydov
  • Francesca Greselin

Abstract

The observed increase in economic inequality, where the major concern is relative to the huge growth of the highest incomes, motivates to revisit classical measures of inequality and to offer new ways to synthesize the variability of the entire income distribution. The idea is to provide policy makers a way to contrast the economic position of the group of the poorer p percent of the population and to compare their mean income to the one owned by the p percent of the richest. The new measure is still a Lorenz-based one, but the significant focus is based here in equally sized and opposite parts of the population whose difference is so remarkable nowadays. We then highlight the specific information given by the new inequality measure and curve, by comparing it to the widely employed Lorenz curve and Gini index and the more recent Zenga approach, and provide an application to Italian data on household income, wealth, and consumption along the years 1980–2012. The effects of estimating inequality indices and curves from grouped data are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Youri Davydov & Francesca Greselin, 2020. "Comparisons Between Poorest and Richest to Measure Inequality," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 49(2), pages 526-561, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:49:y:2020:i:2:p:526-561
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124117747300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124117747300
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124117747300?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greselin Francesca, 2014. "More Equal and Poorer, or Richer but More Unequal?," Stochastics and Quality Control, De Gruyter, vol. 29(2), pages 99-117, December.
    2. Piero Cipollone & Andrea Brandolini, 2002. "Urban Poverty in Developed Countries," LIS Working papers 329, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:393-394 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2010. "Does Consumption Inequality Track Income Inequality in Italy?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 133-153, January.
    5. Francesca Greselin & Leo Pasquazzi & Ričardas Zitikis, 2010. "Zenga's New Index of Economic Inequality, Its Estimation, and an Analysis of Incomes in Italy," Journal of Probability and Statistics, Hindawi, vol. 2010, pages 1-26, April.
    6. Merritt Lyon & Li C. Cheung & Joseph L. Gastwirth, 2016. "The Advantages of Using Group Means in Estimating the Lorenz Curve and Gini Index From Grouped Data," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(1), pages 25-32, February.
    7. Francesca Greselin & Leo Pasquazzi & Ričardas Zitikis, 2013. "Contrasting the Gini and Zenga indices of economic inequality," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 282-297, February.
    8. William H. Starbuck, 2005. "How Much Better Are the Most-Prestigious Journals? The Statistics of Academic Publication," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 180-200, April.
    9. James Foster & Suman Seth & Michael Lokshin & Zurab Sajaia, 2013. "A Unified Approach to Measuring Poverty and Inequality--Theory and Practice : Streamlined Analysis with ADePT Software," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13731.
    10. Herbert G. Grubel, 1998. "Economic Freedom and Human Welfare: Some Empirical Findings," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 18(2), pages 287-304, Fall.
    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. Vytaras Brazauskas & Francesca Greselin & Ricardas Zitikis, 2023. "Measuring income inequality via percentile relativities," Papers 2308.03708, arXiv.org.

    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. Francesca Greselin & Simone Pellegrino & Achille Vernizzi, 2021. "The Zenga Equality Curve: A New Approach to Measuring Tax Redistribution and Progressivity," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(4), pages 950-976, December.
    2. Greselin, Francesca & Zitikis, Ricardas, 2015. "Measuring economic inequality and risk: a unifying approach based on personal gambles, societal preferences and references," MPRA Paper 65892, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Francesca Greselin & Simone Pellegrino & Achille Vernizzi, 2020. "The Social Welfare Implications of the Zenga Index," Papers 2006.12623, arXiv.org.
    4. Michele Zenga, 2016. "On the decomposition by subpopulations of the point and synthetic Zenga (2007) inequality indexes," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 74(3), pages 375-405, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Francesca Greselin & Simone Pellegrino & Achille Vernizzi, 2017. "Lorenz versus Zenga Inequality Curves: a New Approach to Measuring Tax Redistribution and Progressivity," Working papers 046, Department of Economics, Social Studies, Applied Mathematics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    7. Pasquazzi Leo & Zenga Michele, 2018. "Components of Gini, Bonferroni, and Zenga Inequality Indexes for EU Income Data," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 34(1), pages 149-180, March.
    8. Dilanka S. Dedduwakumara & Luke A. Prendergast & Robert G. Staudte, 2021. "Some confidence intervals and insights for the proportion below the relative poverty line," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(10), pages 1-22, October.
    9. Klos, Alexander & Rottke, Simon, 2013. "Saving and Consumption When Children Move Out," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79786, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Mr. Alexei P Kireyev, 2013. "Inclusive Growth and Inequality in Senegal," IMF Working Papers 2013/215, International Monetary Fund.
    11. David L. Anderson & John Tressler, 2013. "The Relevance of the “h-” and “g-” Index to Economics in the Context of A Nation-Wide Research Evaluation Scheme: The New Zealand Case," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(1), pages 81-94, March.
    12. Hendrik Thiel & Stephan L. Thomsen, 2015. "Individual Poverty Paths and the Stability of Control-Perception," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 794, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    13. Lichner, Ivan & Lyócsa, Štefan & Výrostová, Eva, 2022. "Nominal and discretionary household income convergence: The effect of a crisis in a small open economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 18-31.
    14. Tomas Karlsson & Caroline Wigren, 2012. "Start-ups among university employees: the influence of legitimacy, human capital and social capital," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 297-312, June.
    15. Orsetta Causa & Alain de Serres & Nicolas Ruiz, 2015. "Can pro-growth policies lift all boats?: An analysis based on household disposable income," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2015(1), pages 227-268.
    16. Seth W. Norton, 2003. "Economic Institutions and Human Well-Being: A Cross-National Analysis," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 23-40, Winter.
    17. Qingjie Xia & Shi Li & Lina Song, 2017. "Urban Consumption Inequality in China, 1995–2013," Working Papers id:12239, eSocialSciences.
    18. Olalekan Charles Okunlola & Anthony E. Akinlo, 2021. "Does economic freedom enhance quality of life in Africa?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 68(3), pages 357-387, September.
    19. Dang,Hai-Anh H. & Lokshin,Michael M. & Abanokova,Ksenia & Bussolo,Maurizio, 2018. "Inequality and Welfare Dynamics in the Russian Federation during 1994-2015," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8629, The World Bank.
    20. Giulio Fella & Serafin Frache & Winfried Koeniger, 2020. "Buffer‐Stock Saving And Households' Response To Income Shocks," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1359-1382, August.

    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:sae:somere:v:49:y:2020:i:2:p:526-561. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.