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Journal ArticleDOI

On the Measurement of Inequality

01 Sep 1970-Journal of Economic Theory (Academic Press)-Vol. 2, Iss: 3, pp 244-263
TL;DR: In this paper, the problem of comparing two frequency distributions f(u) of an attribute y which for convenience I shall refer to as income is defined as a risk in the theory of decision-making under uncertainty.
About: This article is published in Journal of Economic Theory.The article was published on 1970-09-01. It has received 5002 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Income inequality metrics & Income distribution.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The paper examines the redistributive impact of income taxation for heterogeneous populations by comparing the Lorenz curves of the distributions of before and after tax equivalent incomes.

51 citations


Cites methods from "On the Measurement of Inequality"

  • ...Following Atkinson [3], it is now current practice to appeal to the relative Lorenz criterion when making inequality judgments....

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Journal ArticleDOI
Ben Jann1
TL;DR: The lorenz command as discussed by the authors estimates Lorenz and concentration curves from individual-level data and, optionally, displays the results in a graph, supporting relative, generalized, absolute, unnormalized, custom-normalized Lorenz.
Abstract: Lorenz and concentration curves are widely used tools in inequality research. In this article, I present a new command, lorenz, that estimates Lorenz and concentration curves from individual-level data and, optionally, displays the results in a graph. The lorenz command supports relative, generalized, absolute, unnormalized, custom-normalized Lorenz, and concentration curves. It also provides tools for computing contrasts between different subpopulations or outcome variables. lorenz fully supports variance estimation for complex samples.

51 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Group testing (i.e., testing multiple subjects simultaneously with a single test) is essential for classifying a large population of subjects as positive or negative for a binary characteristic.
Abstract: Group testing (i.e., testing multiple subjects simultaneously with a single test) is essential for classifying a large population of subjects as positive or negative for a binary characteristic (e....

50 citations


Cites methods from "On the Measurement of Inequality"

  • ...Toward this end, we capture the trade-off between accuracy and equity by adopting the α-fairness measure, commonly used in the literature (e.g., Atkinson 1970, Barr 1998, Bertsimas et al. 2012)....

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Book ChapterDOI
01 Nov 1976
TL;DR: It is now widely acknowledged that growth of GNP, conventionally measured, is unsatisfactory as the main target of development strategy and as the sole criterion of its success or failure.
Abstract: It is now widely acknowledged that growth of GNP, conventionally measured, is unsatisfactory as the main target of development strategy and as the sole criterion of its success or failure. Among the many reasons why this is accepted, two have been singled out. First, many developing countries that have experienced rapid rates of growth of GNP have also and simultaneously generated increasing amounts of unemployment and underemployment. The growth rate of employment in the modern sector has been much slower than the growth rate of GNP, and much slower than the growth in numbers seeking modern sector jobs. Secondly, rapid growth in GNP has often been accompanied by a more unequal income distribution and increasing relative and, in some cases, absolute impoverishment of sections of the community. GNP has been ‘dethroned’ mainly because it fails to incorporate any measure of a country’s success in achieving fuller employment and a more even income distribution.

50 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
06 Feb 2010
TL;DR: Two techniques to elicit and focus user work are devised, one using familiarity to direct work opportunities and another visually highlighting them, finding that the techniques succeeded in eliciting user work.
Abstract: Open content communities such as wikis derive their value from the work done by users. However, a key challenge is to elicit work that is sufficient and focused where needed. We address this challenge in a geographic open content community, the Cyclopath bicycle route finding system. We devised two techniques to elicit and focus user work, one using familiarity to direct work opportunities and another visually highlighting them. We conducted a field experiment, finding that (a) the techniques succeeded in eliciting user work, (b) the distribution of work across users was highly unequal, and (c) user work benefitted the community (reducing the length of the average computed route by 1 kilometer).

50 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a measure of risk aversion in the small, the risk premium or insurance premium for an arbitrary risk, and a natural concept of decreasing risk aversion are discussed and related to one another.
Abstract: This paper concerns utility functions for money. A measure of risk aversion in the small, the risk premium or insurance premium for an arbitrary risk, and a natural concept of decreasing risk aversion are discussed and related to one another. Risks are also considered as a proportion of total assets.

5,207 citations

Posted Content

1,748 citations


"On the Measurement of Inequality" refers background in this paper

  • ...3 See Rothschild and Stiglitz [13], Hadar and Russell [ 5 ], and Hanoch and Levy [6]....

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Journal ArticleDOI

1,738 citations


"On the Measurement of Inequality" refers methods in this paper

  • ...Then by applying the results of Pratt [l 11, Arrow [ 2 ], and others, we can see that this requirement (which may be referred to as constant (relative) inequality-aversion) implies that U(y) has the form...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: JSTOR as discussed by the authors is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship, which is used to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources.
Abstract: you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

1,544 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of the first step of the decision-making process of an individual decision maker among alternative risky ventures is presented, in terms of a single dimension such as money, both for the utility functions and for the probability distributions.
Abstract: Publisher Summary The choice of an individual decision maker among alternative risky ventures may be regarded as a two-step procedure. The decision maker chooses an efficient set among all available portfolios, independently of his tastes or preferences. Then, the decision maker applies individual preferences to this set to choose the desired portfolio. The subject of this chapter is the analysis of the first step. It deals with optimal selection rules that minimize the efficient set by discarding any portfolio that is inefficient in the sense that it is inferior to a member of the efficient set, from point of view of each and every individual, when all individuals' utility functions are assumed to be of a given general class of admissible functions. The analysis presented in the chapter is carried out in terms of a single dimension such as money, both for the utility functions and for the probability distributions. However, the results may easily be extended, with minor changes in the theorems and the proofs, to the multivariate case. The chapter explains a necessary and sufficient condition for efficiency, when no further restrictions are imposed on the utility functions. It presents proofs of the optimal efficiency criterion in the presence of general risk aversion, that is, for concave utility functions.

1,160 citations