[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uwo/uwowop/20161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Gini Coefficient and Personal Inequality Measurement

Author

Abstract
The Gini coefficient is the most popular inequality index. It is based on the sum of pairwise absolute income differences, which can be viewed as taking a separate sum for each individual of the differences between his/her income and others’, and then adding up those separate sums. The differences vis-à-vis people with lower income can be used to construct an individual’s advantage, while the differences with respect to people with higher incomes generate the individual’s deprivation. Deprivation and advantage can be weighted differently, producing a whole family of “Gini admissible” personal inequality indexes. The population average of any one of the latter equals the Gini coefficient. The properties of the personal inequality indexes explain the sensitivity of the Gini coefficient to transfers in different ranges of the income distribution. They also throw light on individual views of secular changes in income distribution interesting for their own sake. For example, throughout the change from a traditional to a modern economy that gives rise to the Kuznets curve, those in the traditional sector believe that inequality is constantly increasing while those in the modern sector believe the opposite. Personal views about polarization and rising inequality, as seen in most high income countries in recent decades, are also illuminated.

Suggested Citation

  • James B. Davies, 2016. "The Gini Coefficient and Personal Inequality Measurement," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 20161, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwo:uwowop:20161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=economicsresrpt
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Conchita D’Ambrosio & Joachim Frick, 2007. "Income Satisfaction and Relative Deprivation: An Empirical Link," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 81(3), pages 497-519, May.
    2. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    3. David A. Green & Benjamin M. Sand, 2015. "Has the Canadian labour market polarized?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(2), pages 612-646, May.
    4. Conchita D'Ambrosio & Joachim R. Frick, 2012. "Individual Wellbeing in a Dynamic Perspective," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(314), pages 284-302, April.
    5. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1982. "Relative deprivation and economic welfare," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 99-113.
    6. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    7. Cojocaru, Alexandru, 2014. "Fairness and inequality tolerance: Evidence from the Life in Transition Survey," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 590-608.
    8. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1979. "Relative Deprivation and the Gini Coefficient," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(2), pages 321-324.
    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. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2018. "Economic inequality and subjective well-being across the world," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-170, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2017. "Living conditions and well-being: Evidence from African countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-209, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Can Verberi & Muhittin Kaplan, 2024. "An Evaluation of the Impact of the Pension System on Income Inequality: USA, UK, Netherlands, Italy and Türkiye," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 905-931, September.
    4. Conchita D'Ambrosio & Andrew Clark, 2018. "Economic inequality and subjective well-being across the world," WIDER Working Paper Series 170, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Michelle Acampora & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Markus M. Grabka, 2020. "Income Distribution and the Fear of Crime: Evidence from Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1071, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    6. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D’Ambrosio, 2017. "Living conditions and well-being: Evidence from African countries," WIDER Working Paper Series 209, 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. James B. Davies, 2021. "Personal Gini Coefficients," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 20211, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    2. Clark, Andrew E. & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2014. "Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Paolo Verme, 2010. "Relative labour deprivation and urban migration in Turkey," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 391-408, December.
    4. Labeaga, José M. & Molina, José Alberto & Navarro Paniagua, Maria, 2007. "Income Satisfaction and Deprivation in Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 2702, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Ana I. Moro Egido & Maria Navarro & Ángeles Sánchez-Domínguez, 2017. "Changes in Subjective Well-Being Over Time in Germnay," ThE Papers 17/05, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    6. Lucio Esposito & Shatakshee Dhongde & Christopher Millett, 2021. "Smoking habits in Mexico: Upward and downward comparisons of economic status," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1558-1575, August.
    7. Labeaga, José M. & Molina, José Alberto & Navarro, María, 2011. "Deprivation using satisfaction measures in Spain: An evaluation of unemployment benefits," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 287-310, March.
    8. Elena Bárcena-Martín & Alexandra Cortés-Aguilar & Ana I. Moro-Egido, 2017. "Social Comparisons on Subjective Well-Being: The Role of Social and Cultural Capital," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1121-1145, August.
    9. Elvisa Drishti & Zamira Shkreli & Edvin Zhllima & Blendi Gerdoçi, 2023. "Deprivation, Social Mobility Considerations, and Life Satisfaction: A Comparative Study of 33 European Countries," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(3), pages 511-550, September.
    10. Gordon Anderson & Jasmin Thomas, 2019. "Measuring Multi-group Polarization, Segmentation and Ambiguity: Increasingly Unequal Yet Similar Constituent Canadian Income Distributions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 1001-1032, October.
    11. Veronika Bertram-Hümmer & Ghassan Baliki, 2015. "The Role of Visible Wealth for Deprivation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 765-783, December.
    12. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 2010. "Is There Room For Polarization?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 7-22, March.
    13. María Navarro, 2023. "Social-Cultural Capital and Domain Satisfaction," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 246(3), pages 37-70, September.
    14. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2018. "Economic inequality and subjective well-being across the world," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-170, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Fabio Sabatini & Francesco Sarracino, 2015. "Keeping up with the e-Joneses: Do online social networks raise social comparisons?," Papers 1507.08863, arXiv.org.
    16. Hanna Dudek & Joanna Landmesser, 2012. "Income satisfaction and relative deprivation," Statistics in Transition new series, Główny Urząd Statystyczny (Polska), vol. 13(2), pages 321-334, June.
    17. Maite Blázquez Cuesta & Santiago Budría, 2014. "Deprivation and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Panel Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 655-682, December.
    18. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2017. "Living conditions and well-being: Evidence from African countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-209, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Dirk Antonczyk & Thomas DeLeire & Bernd Fitzenberger, 2018. "Polarization and Rising Wage Inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Germany," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-33, April.
    20. Alain Chateauneuf & Patrick Moyes, 2002. "Measuring inequality without the Pigou-Dalton condition," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00156475, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uwo:uwowop:20161. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://economics.uwo.ca/research/research_papers/department_working_papers.html .

    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.