DIVERGENT INEQUALITIES: THEORY AND EMPIRICAL RESULTS
- 1 December 1997
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Review of Income and Wealth
- Vol. 43 (4) , 401-421
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4991.1997.tb00233.x
Abstract
Widely used summary measures of inequality or the idea of the “disappearing middle class” are potentially misleading. Divergences between evidence cited and conclusions drawn include failing to distinguish between the concepts of inequality and polarization, and using scalar “inequality” measures which are not consistent with rankings based on Lorenz curves. In addition, inappropriate claims about trends in inequality can arise from focusing on only a sub‐population such as full‐time male workers, and failing to account for sampling variability. These divergences are illustrated using Canadian data on labour incomes over the 1967 to 1994 period.This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit:
- Learning from Failure: A Review of Peter Schuck's Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do BetterJournal of Economic Literature, 2015
- International Comparisons of Welfare and Poverty: Dominance Orderings for Ten CountriesCanadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, 1993
- Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to SkillJournal of Political Economy, 1993
- Changes in the Distribution of Individual Earnings in the United States: 1967-1986The Review of Economics and Statistics, 1992
- Changes in the Distribution of American Family Incomes, 1947 to 1984Science, 1987
- STASIS AMID CHANGE INCOME INEQUALITY IN CANADA 1965‐1983Review of Income and Wealth, 1986
- Lorenz Curve Inference with Sample Weights: An Application to the Distribution of Unemployment ExperienceJournal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C: Applied Statistics, 1986
- The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality MeasuresEconometrica, 1980
- On the measurement of inequalityJournal of Economic Theory, 1970