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...

I determine UK income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data (for the "rich") and household survey data (for the "non-rich"), taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data (which I demonstrate) and creating income variables...

In this paper we try to provide an overview of a series of simple descriptive facts on recent trends in economic inequality in Germany. We believe that it is important to be precise in the way in which we define the inequality measure and the sample we use, to avoid generating vague messages...

I determine UK income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data (for the 'rich') and household survey data (for the 'non-rich'), taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data (which I demonstrate) and creating income variables...

Understanding the exact connection between inequality and justice is important because justice is classically regarded as the first line of defense against self-interest and inequality. Absent a strong and clear link between inequality and justice, the sense of justice would not awaken to exert...

This article assesses two secondary data compilations about income inequality - the World Income Inequality Database (WIIDv2c), and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIIDv4.0) which is based on WIID but with all observations multiply-imputed. WIID and SWIID are convenient and...

This article assesses two secondary data compilations about income inequality - the World Income Inequality Database (WIIDv2c), and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIIDv4.0) which is based on WIID but with all observations multiply-imputed. WIID and SWIID are convenient and...

This paper analyzes the microeconomic sources of wage inequality in the United States from 1967-2012. Decomposing inequality into factors categorized by degree of personal responsibility, we find that education is able to explain more than twice as much of inequality today as 45 years ago....

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...

This paper analyzes the inequality of personal earnings in the Czech Republic since the early transition from communism, using relative distribution method. It applies data from two surveys, Microcensus and Living Conditions, covering the period from 1988 to 2008. The trend suggested by many...