The Fiscal Impact of Urban Growth on Municipalities

In this paper, panel regression analysis is used to examine the fiscal impact of urban growth on per-capita or per-household expenditures of providing municipal services in the province of Ontario, Canada. Three variables are used to measure growth: households, population and assessment. Using a panel data set for 68 municipalities, we find that for the most part, urban growth has no effect on per-capita or per-household expenditures. The policy implications of these results are discussed

QUADRATIC PEN's PARADES: SOME NEW RESULTS AND AN APPLICATION

In this paper we derive several new results with respect to the Gini index for a quadratic Pen's parade, building upon recent results by Mussard et al. (2011). To ensure that our results are relevant to many applied settings we impose only the parameter restrictions that guarantee the desirable property of convexity of the quadratic parade, which makes it in accord with the nature of many observed income distributions. We also account for the fact that the correlation between income and its rank is a function of the parameters of the parade. It turns out that for sufficiently large samples the reference value of the Gini index for a quadratic Pen's parade is 1/2. Whether the Gini index is equal to, less than or greater than 1/2 in these large sample situations depends on whether or not the quadratic parade passes through, above or below the origin, respectively. The problem of fitting a quadratic Pen's parade to observed income distributions is discussed and illustrated using Canadian data.Augmented Quadratic Pen's Parade; Gini Index; Linear Pen's Parade; Parsimonious Quadratic Pen's Parade

The Gini Index for a Quadratic Pen's Parade

In this paper, we provide alternative derivations of the Gini index for a quadratic Pen's parade without imposing unnecessary restrictions on its parameters. It turns out that in sufficiently large samples the reference value of the Gini index for a quadratic Pen's parade is 1/2 (as opposed to 1/3 in the case of a linear Pen's parade). Whether the Gini index is equal to, less than or greater than the reference value in these cases depends on whether or not Pen's parade passes through, above or below the origin, respectively.Gini Index; Augmented Quadratic Pen's Parade; Parsimonious Quadratic Pen's Parade; Linear Pen's Parade

The stochastic approach to price index numbers: An expository note

The present paper provides an objective basis for selecting the best among four commonly used price index numbers, namely the Laspeyres price index, the Paasche price index, the simple aggregative price index and the simple arithmetic mean of price relatives. The criterion is developed within a stochastic framework that also enables researchers to test hypotheses about the index numbers themselves. The paper also provides nonparametric interpretations of these indices.

Inter-country inequality in human development indicators

This paper compares the degree of inter-country inequality in three measures of human development (the Human Development Index (HDI), the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)) to those in real income as measured by real GDP per capita in PPP$(RY) and adjusted real GDP per capita in PPP$ (ARY). To this end, three inequality measures with convenient decomposition properties are used. The results show that inter-country inequalities in RY and ARY are greater than those in all the three human development indicators, irrespective of the inequality measure used. Furthermore, GDI and GEM both exhibit higher degrees of inter-country inequality than does HDI. In addition, GEM exhibits the highest level of inter-country inequality among the three human development indicators, irrespective of the inequality measure used.

A modification of Silber’s algorithm to derive bounds on Gini’s concentration ratio from grouped observations

Silber (1990) devised an algorithm to derive the bounds of Gini’s concentration ratio from grouped data, which does not require information on the limits of the income brackets, the group mean incomes, or the overall mean income. In the case of the upper bound, Silber’s algorithm entails determining the coordinates of the points of intersection of the tangents to the Lorenz Curve (LC) at the observed points, which are then used in conjunction with the G-matrix operator. In this note we derive modified coordinates of the points of intersection of the tangents to the LC at the observed points assuming that there is information on the limits of the income brackets and full or sparse information on mean incomes. We also show that if the modified coordinates are incorporated into Silber’s algorithm, the resulting estimate of the upper bound is identical to estimates of the upper bound proposed by Gastwirth, Fuller, and Ogwang