A key aspect defining the contemporary income distribution is the (increasing) share the top holds compared to the rest. This paper shows that income concentration increases towards the very top of the distribution, while the shares the middle- and upper-middle-income groups hold remain stable...

Since globalisation accelerated in the early 1990s, income inequality has increased in most developed countries and in some middle-income countries, including China and India. Also, inequality has declined in most countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and in many Sub-Saharan African and...

In the machine learning community, the Gini index is a very popular score for model selection, and it is also used in actuarial science for evaluating insurance pricing models. The purpose of this tutorial is to discuss the Gini index, both its version in economics and its version in machine...

We explore the relationship between import protection and the household distribution of income. We first develop a general-equilibrium mapping from tariffs to household inequality measures. This also yields predictions for linkages between tariffs, development level, and observed household...

Index of refraction is found to be a good measure of economic inequality within the Lorenz curve framework. It has origin in geometrical optics, where it measures bending of a ray of light passing from one transparent medium into another. As light refracts according to characteristics of...

This paper points to flaws in Gini decompositions by income sources and population subgroups and to common pitfalls in the interpretation of decomposition results, focusing on methods within the framework of Rao (1969). We argue that within this framework Gini elasticities may provide the only...

We demonstrate that a rank-preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality (when inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient). This happens when individuals' preferences depend negatively not only on work time (effort) but also on low...

We demonstrate that a rank-preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality (when inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient). This happens when individuals' preferences depend negatively not only on work time (effort) but also on low...

This paper considers a parametric model for the joint distribution of income and wealth. The model is used to analyze income and wealth inequality in five OECD countries using comparable household-level survey data. We focus on the dependence parameter between the two variables and study whether...

This essay outlines the exact definition of “Equality” and “Inequality” in economics. The discussion moves forward to review concepts of ranking of orderings and methodology of constructing Indices of Inequality with an emphasis on Lorenz Orderings. We also discuss the possibility of...