Ranking Intersecting Lorenz Curves

This paper is concerned with the problem of ranking Lorenz curves in situations where the Lorenz curves intersect and no unambiguous ranking can be attained without introducing weaker ranking criteria than first-degree Lorenz dominance. To deal with such situations two alternative sequences of nested dominance criteria between Lorenz curves are introduced. At the limit the systems of dominance criteria appear to depend solely on the income share of either the worst-off or the best-off income recipient. This result suggests two alternative strategies for increasing the number of Lorenz curves that can be strictly ordered; one that places more emphasis on changes that occur in the lower part of the income distribution and the other that places more emphasis on changes that occur in the upper part of the income distribution. Both strategies turn out to depart from the Gini coefficient; one requires higher degree of downside and the other higher degree of upside inequality aversion than what is exhibited by the Gini coefficient. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the sequences of dominance criteria characterize two separate systems of nested subfamilies of inequality measures and thus provide a method for identifying the least restrictive social preferences required to reach an unambiguous ranking of a given set of Lorenz curves. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the introduction of successively more general transfer principles than the Pigou-Dalton principle of transfers forms a helpful basis for judging the normative significance of higher degrees of Lorenz dominance. The dominance results for Lorenz curves do also apply to generalized Lorenz curves and thus provide convenient characterizations of the corresponding social welfare orderings.generalized Gini families of inequality measures, rank-dependent measures of inequality, Gini coefficient, partial orderings, Lorenz dominance, Lorenz curve, general principles of transfers

Global Inequality: Recent Evidence and Trends

This paper examines the nature and extent of global and regional income distribution and inequality using the most recent country level data on income distribution drawn from World Bank and UNU-WIDER studies for the period 1993-2000. The methodology used is a recently developed technique to fit flexible income distributions to limited aggregated data. Empirical results show a very high degree of global inequality, but with some evidence of inequality decreasing between the two years.Gini coefficient, beta-2 distribution

A rightward shift in the visuospatial attention vector with healthy aging

The study of lateralised visuospatial attention bias in non-clinical samples has revealed a systematic group-level leftward bias (pseudoneglect), possibly as a consequence of right hemisphere dominance for visuospatial attention. Pseudoneglect appears to be modulated by age, with a reduced or even reversed bias typically present in elderly participants. It has been suggested that this shift in bias may arise due to disproportionate aging of the right hemisphere and/or an increase in complementary functional recruitment of the left hemisphere for visuospatial processing. In this study, we report rightward shifts in subjective midpoint judgement relative to healthy young participants whilst elderly participants performed a computerized version of the landmark task (in which they had to judge whether a transection mark appeared closer to the right or left end of a line) on three different line lengths. This manipulation of stimulus properties led to a similar behavioural pattern in both the young and the elderly: a rightward shift in subjective midpoint with decreasing line length, which even resulted in a systematic rightward bias in elderly participants for the shortest line length (1.98° of visual angle). Overall performance precision for the task was lower in the elderly participants regardless of line length, suggesting reduced landmark task discrimination sensitivity with healthy aging. This rightward shift in the attentional vector with healthy aging is likely to result from a reduction in right hemisphere resources/dominance for attentional processing in elderly participants. The significant rightward bias in the elderly for short lines may even suggest a reversal of hemisphere dominance in favour of the left hemisphere/right visual field under specific conditions

Inequality and Welfare Evaluation of Heterogeneous Income Distributions

This paper establishes the principles which should govern the welfare and inequality analysis of heterogeneous income distributions. Two basic criteria?the ?equity preference? condition and the ?compensation principle??are shown to be fundamentally incompatible. The paper favours the latter, thereby vindicating the traditional method of dealing with heterogeneous samples. However, inequality and welfare comparisons will usually be well defined only if equivalent incomes are obtained using constant scale factors; and researchers will need to distinguish clearly between inequality of nominal incomes and inequality of living standards. Furthermore, household observations must always be weighted according to family size.income distribution, inequality, living standards, needs

Between-Group Pigou-Dalton Transfers

This paper introduces the concept of Pigou-Dalton transfers between populations of income receivers. Gini's mean difference and Dagum's Gini index between populations are axiomatically derived in order to gauge the impact of within- and between-group Pigou-Dalton transfers on Dagum's measure. We show its sensitiveness for any given transfer in the sense that inequality-reducing transfers are captured when transfers occur from higher-income donors to lower-income recipients, which belong to two distinct populations. Accordingly, we point out the implications of between-group transfers on: the ordering of multivariate majorization, the multivariate stochastic dominance in the sense of multivariate Lorenz ordering and zonotope inclusions, the Gini decomposition, and on the use of the generalized entropy index.Between-group Gini ; Between-group Transfers ; Entropy ; Pigou-Dalton ; Within-group Transfers

Estimating and Combining National Income Distributions using Limited Data

A major problem encountered in studies of income inequality at regional and global levels is the estimation of income distributions from data that are in a summary form. In this paper we estimate national and regional income distributions within a general framework that relaxes the assumption of constant income within groups. A technique to estimate the parameters of a beta-2 distribution using grouped data is proposed. Regional income distribution is modelled using a mixture of country-specific distributions and its properties are examined. The techniques are used to analyse national and regional inequality trends for eight East Asian countries and two benchmark years, 1988 and 1993.Gini coefficient; beta-2 distribution

The measurement of gender wage discrimination: The distributional approach revisited

This paper presents the advantages of taking into account the distribution of the individual wage gap when analyzing female wage discrimination. The limitations of previous approaches such as the classic Oaxaca-Blinder and the recent distributive proposals using quantile regressions or counterfactual functions are thoroughly discussed. The new methodology presented here relies on Jenkins' (1994) work and proposes the use of poverty and deprivation literature techniques that are directly applicable to the measurement of discrimination. In an empirical application, we quantify the relevance of the glass ceiling and sticky floor phenomena in the Spanish labor market.children distributive analysis, economics of gender, wage discrimination, glass ceiling, sticky floor.