We identify an ordinal decomposability property and use it, along with other ordinal axioms, to characterize the Theil inequality ordering.

We axiomatically characterize the Theil ordering of income inequality. In addition to the uncontroversial axioms of anonymity, homogeneity, replication invariance, strong directedness, and a standard continuity property, we appeal to both an independence and a decomposability axioms. These two...