Full Citation

Title: Top Incomes and Income Inequality Indices: A Unified Framework Based on Inequality Index Curves

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2019

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Abstract: An income inequality index number cannot summarize the complete information in the distribution. We propose a family of inequality index curves, which includes curves generated by popular inequality index numbers (e.g. the top income shares, the Gini coefficient and the Palma ratio). The family has two advantages: (1) The family has an axiomatic foundation. (2) Each curve in the family contains the full information of the distribution. We use the family and micro level data to show that the bottom and middle income people in the U.S. became more equally relatively poor (not just relatively poorer) from 1990 to 2010.

Url: https://rmi.nus.edu.sg/research/documents/RMI-WPS-2019-07.pdf

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Authors: Dai, Min; Kou, Steven; Shao, Hui

Series Title: NUS RMI Working Paper Series

Publication Number: 2019/07

Institution: NUS Risk Management Institute

Pages: 54

Publisher Location: Singapore

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Population Data Science, Poverty and Welfare

Countries: Singapore