In a recent paper in this journal [Q. Guo, L. Gao, Distribution of individual incomes in China between 1992 and 2009, Physica A 391 (2012) 5139–5145], a new family of distributions for modeling individual incomes in China was proposed. This family is the so-called Modified Gaussian (MG)...

The importance of the Pietra index in socioeconomic systems and econophysics has been highlighted by Eliazar and Sokolov (2010). In this paper, we obtain closed expressions for the Pietra index for the generalized function for the size of income proposed by McDonald (1984). This family is...

In this paper, we study global inequality in well-being taking as a theoretical benchmark the Human Development Index (HDI), which comprises variables of income, health and education. We use a two-step methodology that involves the construction of a composite index in the first step on which...

En este trabajo se trata de contribuir al estudio de la desigualdad en el bienestar, concebido como un proceso multidimensional, analizando la desigualdad entre países en términos del Índice de Desarrollo Humano (IDH). El estudio se aborda a partir de dos enfoques metodológicos alternativos...

We re-examine the concept of beta-convergence in living standards across countries during the period 1980–2012. In this study, well-being is assessed using the Human Development Index (HDI) which considers income aspects as well as social indicators, thus reflecting the multidimensional nature...

A new method for building parametric-functional families of Lorenz curves, generated from an initial Lorenz curve (which satisfies some regularity conditions), is presented. The method is applied to the exponential family since they use the exponential Lorenz curves as their generating curves....

In this article, a new methodology for obtaining a premium based on a broad class of conjugate prior distributions, assuming lognormal claims, is presented. The new class of prior distributions arise in a natural way, using the conditional specification technique introduced by Arnold, Castillo,...

A k-dimensional density function is determined by certain combinations of marginal and conditional densities. The present paper identifies all possible such specifications. Gelman and Speed (1993) have treated the finite discrete case of this problem. The present paper extends their work to a...