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A Treatment of Absolute Indices of Polarization

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  • Chakravarty, Sanya R.
  • Majumdar, A.
  • Roy, Sonali

Abstract

Absolute polarization indices remain unchanged under equal absolute augmentation in all incomes. This paper identifies the class of absolute polarization indices whose orderings of alternative income distributions agree with the rankings generated by nonintersecting absolute polarization curves. We explore the possibility of using the Kolm (1976)–Blackorby‐Donaldson (1980) ethical absolute inequality index in polarization measurement. We establish that although inequality and polarization are dissimilar concepts, different absolute inequality indices can be employed to design alternative absolute polarization indices. A numerical illustration is provided using Indian data and it is shown that inequality and polarization are different issues in income distribution analysis.
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Suggested Citation

  • Chakravarty, Sanya R. & Majumdar, A. & Roy, Sonali, 2007. "A Treatment of Absolute Indices of Polarization," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12811, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:isu:genres:12811
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    Cited by:

    1. Ma Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Henar Díez, 2010. "Unit Consistency And Bipolarization Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 65-83, March.
    2. Ibrahim Tutar & Aysit Tansel, 2012. "An Analysis Of Political And Institutional Power Dispersion: The Case Of Turkey," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 548-565, October.
    3. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2015. "A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 422-439, September.
    4. Joan Esteban & Carlos Gradín & Debraj Ray, 2007. "An Extension of a Measure of Polarization, with an application to the income distribution of five OECD countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, April.
    5. Chiara Gigliarano & Pietro Muliere, 2012. "Measuring Income Polarization Using an Enlarged Middle Class," Working Papers 271, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    6. Satya Chakravarty & Bhargav Maharaj, 2012. "Ethnic polarization orderings and indices," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 7(1), pages 99-123, May.
    7. Mogues, Tewodaj, 2008. "A two-dimensional measure of polarization:," IFPRI discussion papers 837, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Fuad Aleskerov & Victoria Oleynik, 2016. "Multidimensional Polarization Index and its Application to an Analysis of the Russian State Duma," Papers 1608.01351, arXiv.org.
    9. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Humberto Llavador, 2024. "Social Preorders and Tax Progressivity," Working Papers 1459, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Chiara Gigliarano & Daniel Nowak & Karl Mosler, 2019. "A Polarization Index for Overlapping Groups," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 712-735, December.
    11. Mariateresa Ciommi & Chiara Gigliarano & Giovanni Maria Giorgi, 2019. "Bonferroni And De Vergottini Are Back: New Subgroup Decompositions And Bipolarization Measures," Working Papers 439, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    12. Ibrahim Tutar & Aysit Tansel, 2012. "An Analysis Of Political And Institutional Power Dispersion: The Case Of Turkey," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 548-565, October.
    13. Peter Lambert, 2010. "James Foster and Michael Wolfson’s 1992 paper “Polarization and the decline of the middle class”," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 241-245, June.
    14. Melanie Krause, 2017. "The Millennium Peak in Club Convergence: A New Look at Distributional Changes in The Wealth of Nations," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 621-642, April.
    15. Alessio Fusco & Jacques Silber, 2014. "On social polarization and ordinal variables: the case of self-assessed health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(8), pages 841-851, November.
    16. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2007:i:36:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Fabio Clementi & Francesco Schettino, 2013. "Income polarization in Brazil, 2001-2011: A distributional analysis using PNAD data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 1796-1815.
    18. F. Clementi & A. L. Dabalen & V. Molini & F. Schettino, 2017. "When the Centre Cannot Hold: Patterns of Polarization in Nigeria," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 608-632, December.
    19. Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2010. "Polarization Orderings Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 47-64, March.

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