Inequality: measurement
Cowell, F.
(2008).
Inequality: measurement.
In
Durlauf, S. N. & Blume, L. E.
(Eds.),
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
.
Palgrave Macmillan.
(2008).
Inequality: measurement.
In
Durlauf, S. N. & Blume, L. E.
(Eds.),
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
.
Palgrave Macmillan.
This article provides an overview of the key issues in inequality measurement and shows how theoretical concepts are related to practical judgements. The principal axioms of distributional analysis are used to show the social-welfare underpinnings of standard ranking principles and to derive families of inequality indices. Recent developments that focus on income differences and reference income levels are examined.