How Has the Literature on Gini's Index Evolved in the Past 80 Years?

Abstract

The Gini coefficient or index is perhaps one of the most used indicators of social and economic conditions. From its first proposal in English in 1921 to the present, a large number of papers on the Gini index has been written and published. Going through these papers represents a demanding task. The aim of this survey paper is to help the reader to navigate through the major developments of the literature and to incorporate recent theoretical research results with a particular focus on different formulations and interpretations of the Gini index, its social welfare implication, and source and subgroup decomposition.Gini coefficent or index; social welfare; decomposition; computation