Gini decompositions and Gini elasticities: On measuring the importance of income sources and population subgroups for income inequality

Arbeitspapier

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 meaningful way to examine the relevance of income sources or population subgroups for total income inequality. Moreover, we show that existing methods are unsuitable to decompose the trend in the Gini coefficient and provide a coherent method to decompose the Gini trend by income sources. We add to the recent trend of multi-decompositions by deriving Gini elasticities from a simultaneous decomposition by income sources and population subgroups.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Diskussionsbeiträge ; No. 2014/22

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Index Numbers and Aggregation; Leading indicators ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Factor Income Distribution ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
• Thema: income inequality ; Gini decomposition ; Gini elasticity ; income sources ; population subgroups ; multi-decomposition

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Jurkatis, Simon ; Strehl, Wolfgang
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Freie Universität Berlin, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaft
• (wo): Berlin
• (wann): 2014

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/102730
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ