IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/etbull/v7y2019i1d10.1007_s40505-018-0148-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characterizing inequality benchmark incomes

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence S. J. Roope

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

Many inequality measures have the property that for any income distribution there exists a benchmark income, above which adding incremental income increases inequality, and below which it decreases inequality. This note provides social preference conditions which guarantee the existence of such a benchmark income. The key condition is a strong version of the Pigou–Dalton transfer principle. The results imply that benchmark incomes exist for virtually all known inequality measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence S. J. Roope, 2019. "Characterizing inequality benchmark incomes," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(1), pages 131-145, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:etbull:v:7:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s40505-018-0148-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s40505-018-0148-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40505-018-0148-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40505-018-0148-5?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. Hoffmann, Rodolfo, 2001. "Effect of the rise of a person's income on inequality," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 21(2), November.
    2. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-231, March.
    3. Peter Lambert & Giuseppe Lanza, 2006. "The effect on inequality of changing one or two incomes," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 4(3), pages 253-277, December.
    4. Alejandro Corvalan, 2014. "The Impact of a Marginal Subsidy on Gini Indices," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 596-603, September.
    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. Fernando Antonio Ignacio González & Juan Antonio Dip, 2024. "Whom Is It Fair to Subsidise? Evidence from Argentina," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 12(3), pages 260-272, December.
    2. Heidorn, Thomas & Schäfer, Niklas, 2020. "Euro-Benchmarkreform - Neue Referenzzinssätze in der Eurozone," Frankfurt School - Working Paper Series 228, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
    3. Laurence S J Roope, 2021. "First estimates of inequality benchmark incomes for a range of countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-8, March.
    4. Borja Lopez-Noval & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Laurence Roope & Finn Tarp, 2024. "From the bottom 40 to inequality lines: Sharing prosperity globally and domestically," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2024-77, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Stanislaw Maciej Kot & Piotr Paradowski, 2024. "The Equally Distributed Equivalent Income as the Upper Limit of Poverty Lines," LIS Working papers 885, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. John Creedy, 2016. "Interpreting inequality measures and changes in inequality," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(2), pages 177-192, August.
    3. John Creedy, 2023. "Comparing Income Distributions Using Atkinson's Measure of Inequality," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 56(1), pages 141-155, March.
    4. Fernando Antonio Ignacio González & Juan Antonio Dip, 2024. "Whom Is It Fair to Subsidise? Evidence from Argentina," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 12(3), pages 260-272, December.
    5. Laurence S J Roope, 2021. "First estimates of inequality benchmark incomes for a range of countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-8, March.
    6. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Christian Seidl, 2007. "The Impossibility of a Just Pigouvian," Working Papers 69, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Bosmans, Kristof, 2014. "Distribution-sensitivity of rank-dependent poverty measures," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 69-76.
    8. Peter J. Lambert, 2014. "The Impact of a Marginal Subsidy on Gini Indices: Comment," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 604-605, September.
    9. Diego C. Botassio & Rodolfo Hoffmann, 2020. "Measuring gender segregation," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(1), pages 25-47, April.
    10. Guido Erreygers & Philip Clarke & Qiong Zheng, 2017. "On the measurement of socioeconomic inequality of health between countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(2), pages 175-193, June.
    11. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Deutsch, Joseph & Silber, Jacques, 2008. "On the Watts Multidimensional Poverty Index and its Decomposition," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1067-1077, June.
    12. Borooah, Vani, 2007. "Measuring economic inequality: deprivation, economising and possessing," MPRA Paper 19422, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. 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).
    14. Belhadj, Besma & Limam, Mohamed, 2012. "Unidimensional and multidimensional fuzzy poverty measures: New approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 995-1002.
    15. repec:pru:wpaper:8 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Araar, Abdelkrim & Giles, John, 2010. "Chronic and transient poverty: Measurement and estimation, with evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 266-277, March.
    17. Russell Davidson & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2000. "Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(6), pages 1435-1464, November.
    18. Guido Erreygers & Roselinde Kessels & Linkun Chen & Philip Clarke, 2016. "Decomposing Socioeconomic Inequality of Health," EcoMod2016 9574, EcoMod.
    19. Temple, Jonathan & Ying, Huikang, 2014. "Life During Structural Transformation," CEPR Discussion Papers 10297, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Gaurav Datt & Martin Ravallion, 1998. "Farm productivity and rural poverty in India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 62-85.
    21. Vito Peragine & Ernesto Savaglio & Stefano Vannucci, 2008. "Poverty Rankings of Opportunity Profiles," Department of Economics University of Siena 548, Department of Economics, University of Siena.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; Inequality measurement; Benchmark income; Transfer principle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    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:spr:etbull:v:7:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s40505-018-0148-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.