An ethnic polarization index is a summary statistic of ethnic diversity in a population. Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005,2008) suggested an index of ethnic polarization, the RQ index, and discussed its properties in detail. In this paper we develop some axiomatic characterizations of the RQ...

This paper documents patterns and recent developments on income inequality in Latin America (LA). New comparative international evidence confirms that LA is a region of high inequality, although maybe not the highest in the world. Income inequality has fallen in the 2000s, suggesting a turning...

This paper analyzes and compares socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services by the elderly in four South-American cities: Buenos Aires (Argentina), Santiago (Chile), Montevideo (Uruguay) and San Pablo (Brazil). We use data from SABE, a survey on Health, Well-being and Aging...

We devise a retrospective panel data approach to evaluate the effects of fair trade affiliation on the schooling decisions of a sample of Thai organic rice producers across the past 20 years. We find that the probability of school enrolment in families with more than two children is...

A widely accepted criterion for pro-poorness of an income growth pattern is that it should reduce a (chosen) measure of poverty by more than if all incomes were growing equiproportionately. Inequality reduction is not generally seen as either necessary or sufficient for pro-poorness. Because...

We examine the measurement of multidimensional poverty and material deprivation following the counting approach. In contrast to earlier contributions, dimensions of well-being are not forced to be equally important but different weights can be assigned to different dimensions. We characterize a...

Income as the traditional one dimensional measure in well-being and poverty analyses is extended in recent studies by a multidimensional poverty concept, however, two important aspects are missing: time as an important dimension and the interdependence of the often only separately counted...

An abbreviated or reduced-form monotonic polarization index is an increasing function of the between-group term and a decreasing function of the within-group term of a population subgroup decomposable inequality index. The between-group term represents the „identification? component of...

In the present paper we study the distributive impact of institutional change in developing countries. In such economies, economic institutions, such as property rights systems, may act to preserve the interests of a rich minority, but this depends crucially on the level of political equality....

We propose to measure inequality of well-being with a multidimensional generalization of the Gini coefficient. We derive two inequality indices from their underlying social evaluation functions. These functions are conceived as a double aggregation functions: one across the dimensions of...