fbpx
Wikipedia

Gini coefficient

In economics, the Gini coefficient (/ˈni/ JEE-nee), also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality or the wealth inequality within a nation or a social group. The Gini coefficient was developed by the statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini.

World map of income inequality Gini coefficients by country (as %). Based on World Bank data ranging from 1992 to 2020.[1]
  •   Above 50
  •   Between 45 to 50
  •   Between 40 to 45
  •   Between 35 to 40
  •   Between 30 to 35
  •   Below 30
  •   No data
A map showing Gini coefficients for wealth within countries for 2019[2]
Global share of wealth by wealth group. Redrawn from data from Credit Suisse, 2021[3]

The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency distribution, such as the levels of income. A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) reflects maximal inequality among values. For example, if everyone has the same income, the Gini coefficient will be 0. In contrast, if for a large number of people only one person has all the income or consumption and all others have none, the Gini coefficient will be 1.[4][5]

The Gini coefficient was proposed by Corrado Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth.[6] For OECD countries, in the late 20th century, considering the effect of taxes and transfer payments, the income Gini coefficient ranged between 0.24 and 0.49, with Slovenia being the lowest and Mexico the highest.[7] African countries had the highest pre-tax Gini coefficients in 2008–2009, with South Africa having the world's highest, variously estimated to be 0.63 to 0.7,[8][9] although this figure drops to 0.52 after social assistance is taken into account, and drops again to 0.47 after taxation.[10] The global income Gini coefficient in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources.[11][12]

There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient; the same value may result from many different distribution curves. The demographic structure should be taken into account. Countries with an aging population or with an increased birth rate experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient.[13][14][15]

History

The Gini coefficient was developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper Variability and Mutability (Italian: Variabilità e mutabilità).[16][17] Building on the work of American economist Max Lorenz, Gini proposed that the difference between the hypothetical straight line depicting perfect equality, and the actual line depicting people's incomes, be used as a measure of inequality.[18]

Definition

 
Graphical representation of the Gini coefficient:
The graph shows that the Gini coefficient is equal to the area marked A divided by the sum of the areas marked A and B, that is, Gini = A/(A + B). It is also equal to 2A and to 1 − 2B due to the fact that A + B = 0.5 (since the axes scale from 0 to 1).

The Gini coefficient is an index for the degree of inequality in the distribution of income/wealth, used to estimate how far a country's wealth or income distribution deviates from an equal distribution.

The Gini coefficient is usually defined mathematically based on the Lorenz curve, which plots the proportion of the total income of the population (y-axis) that is cumulatively earned by the bottom x of the population (see diagram). The line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes. The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area that lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve (marked A in the diagram) over the total area under the line of equality (marked A and B in the diagram); i.e., G = A/(A + B). If there are no negative incomes, it is also equal to 2A and to 1 − 2B due to the fact that A + B = 0.5.

Suppose all people have non-negative income (or wealth, as the case may be). In that case, the Gini coefficient can theoretically range from 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality) and is sometimes expressed as a percentage ranging between 0 and 100. If negative values are possible (such as the wealth of people with debts), then the Gini coefficient could theoretically be more than 1. Usually, the mean (or total) is assumed to be positive, which rules out a Gini coefficient of less than zero.[19]

An alternative approach is to define the Gini coefficient as half of the relative mean absolute difference, which is mathematically equivalent to the definition based on the Lorenz curve.[20] The mean absolute difference is the average absolute difference of all pairs of items of the population, and the relative mean absolute difference is the mean absolute difference divided by the average,  , to normalize for scale. If xi is the wealth or income of person i, and there are n persons, then the Gini coefficient G is given by:

 

When the income (or wealth) distribution is given as a continuous probability density function p(x), the Gini coefficient is again half of the relative mean absolute difference:

 

where   is the mean of the distribution, and the lower limits of integration may be replaced by zero when all incomes are positive.

Calculation

 
Richest u of population (red) equally share f of all income or wealth; others (green) equally share remainder: G = fu. A smooth distribution (blue) with the same u and f always has G > fu.

While the income distribution of any particular country will not always follow theoretical models, in reality, these models give a qualitative understanding of the income distribution in a nation given the Gini coefficient.

Example: two levels of income

The extreme cases are represented by the "most equal" society in which every person receives the same income (G = 0) and the "most unequal" society (composed of N individuals) where a single person receives 100% of the total income and the remaining N − 1 people receive none (G = 1 − 1/N).

A simplified case distinguishes just two levels of income, low and high. If the high income group is a proportion u of the population and earns a proportion f of all income, then the Gini coefficient is fu. A more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than fu.

An example case in which the richest 20% of the population have 80% of all income (see Pareto principle) would lead to an income Gini coefficient of at least 60%.

Another example case[21] in which 1% of all the world's population owns 50% of all wealth, would result in a wealth Gini coefficient of at least 49%.

Alternative expressions

In some cases, this equation can be applied to calculate the Gini coefficient without direct reference to the Lorenz curve. For example, (taking y to indicate the income or wealth of a person or household):

  • For a population uniform on the values yi, i = 1 to n, indexed in non-decreasing order (yiyi+1):
 
This may be simplified to:
 
This formula actually applies to any real population, since each person can be assigned his or her own yi.[22]

Since the Gini coefficient is half the relative mean absolute difference, it can also be calculated using formulas for the relative mean absolute difference. For a random sample S consisting of values yi, i = 1 to n, that are indexed in non-decreasing order (yiyi+1), the statistic:

 

is a consistent estimator of the population Gini coefficient, but is not, in general, unbiased. Like G, G(S) has a simpler form:

 

There does not exist a sample statistic that is, in general, an unbiased estimator of the population Gini coefficient, like the relative mean absolute difference.

Discrete probability distribution

For a discrete probability distribution with probability mass function    , where   is the fraction of the population with income or wealth  , the Gini coefficient is:

 

where

 

If the points with non-zero probabilities are indexed in increasing order  , then:

 

where

  and   These formulas are also applicable in the limit, as  

Continuous probability distribution

When the population is large, the income distribution may be represented by a continuous probability density function f(x) where f(x) dx is the fraction of the population with wealth or income in the interval dx about x. If F(x) is the cumulative distribution function for f(x):

 

and L(x) is the Lorenz function:

 

then the Lorenz curve L(F) may then be represented as a function parametric in L(x) and F(x) and the value of B can be found by integration:

 

The Gini coefficient can also be calculated directly from the cumulative distribution function of the distribution F(y). Defining μ as the mean of the distribution, and specifying that F(y) is zero for all negative values, the Gini coefficient is given by:

 

The latter result comes from integration by parts. (Note that this formula can be applied when there are negative values if the integration is taken from minus infinity to plus infinity.)

The Gini coefficient may be expressed in terms of the quantile function Q(F) (inverse of the cumulative distribution function: Q(F(x)) = x)

 

Since the Gini coefficient is independent of scale, if the distribution function can be expressed in the form f(x,φ,a,b,c...) where φ is a scale factor and a,b,c... are dimensionless parameters, then the Gini coefficient will be a function only of a,b,c....[23] For example, for the exponential distribution, which is a function of only x and a scale parameter, the Gini coefficient is a constant, equal to 1/2.

For some functional forms, the Gini index can be calculated explicitly. For example, if y follows a log-normal distribution with the standard deviation of logs equal to  , then   where   is the error function ( since  , where   is the cumulative distribution function of a standard normal distribution).[24] In the table below, some examples for probability density functions with support on   are shown. The Dirac delta distribution represents the case where everyone has the same wealth (or income); it implies no variations between incomes.[25]

Income Distribution function PDF(x) Gini Coefficient
Dirac delta function   0
Uniform distribution[26]    
Exponential distribution[27]    
Log-normal distribution[24][28]    
Pareto distribution[29]    
Chi distribution[30]    
Chi-squared distribution[31]    
Gamma distribution[23]    
Weibull distribution[32]    
Beta distribution[33]    
Log-logistic distribution[34]    

Other approaches

Sometimes the entire Lorenz curve is not known, and only values at certain intervals are given. In that case, the Gini coefficient can be approximated using various techniques for interpolating the missing values of the Lorenz curve. If (Xk, Yk) are the known points on the Lorenz curve, with the Xk indexed in increasing order (Xk – 1 < Xk), so that:

  • Xk is the cumulated proportion of the population variable, for k = 0,...,n, with X0 = 0, Xn = 1.
  • Yk is the cumulated proportion of the income variable, for k = 0,...,n, with Y0 = 0, Yn = 1.
  • Yk should be indexed in non-decreasing order (Yk > Yk – 1)

If the Lorenz curve is approximated on each interval as a line between consecutive points, then the area B can be approximated with trapezoids and:

 

is the resulting approximation for G. More accurate results can be obtained using other methods to approximate the area B, such as approximating the Lorenz curve with a quadratic function across pairs of intervals or building an appropriately smooth approximation to the underlying distribution function that matches the known data. If the population mean and boundary values for each interval are also known, these can also often be used to improve the accuracy of the approximation.

The Gini coefficient calculated from a sample is a statistic, and its standard error, or confidence intervals for the population Gini coefficient, should be reported. These can be calculated using bootstrap techniques, mathematically complicated and computationally demanding even in an era of fast computers.[35] Economist Tomson Ogwang made the process more efficient by setting up a "trick regression model" in which respective income variables in the sample are ranked, with the lowest income being allocated rank 1. The model then expresses the rank (dependent variable) as the sum of a constant A and a normal error term whose variance is inversely proportional to yk:

 

Thus, G can be expressed as a function of the weighted least squares estimate of the constant A and that this can be used to speed up the calculation of the jackknife estimate for the standard error. Economist David Giles argued that the standard error of the estimate of A can be used to derive the estimate of G directly without using a jackknife. This method only requires using ordinary least squares regression after ordering the sample data. The results compare favorably with the estimates from the jackknife with agreement improving with increasing sample size.[36]

However, it has been argued that this depends on the model's assumptions about the error distributions and the independence of error terms. These assumptions are often not valid for real data sets. There is still ongoing debate surrounding this topic.

Guillermina Jasso[37] and Angus Deaton[38] independently proposed the following formula for the Gini coefficient:

 

where   is mean income of the population, Pi is the income rank P of person i, with income X, such that the richest person receives a rank of 1 and the poorest a rank of N. This effectively gives higher weight to poorer people in the income distribution, which allows the Gini to meet the Transfer Principle. Note that the Jasso-Deaton formula rescales the coefficient so that its value is one if all the   are zero except one. Note however Allison's reply on the need to divide by N² instead.[39]

FAO explains another version of the formula.[40]

Generalized inequality indices

The Gini coefficient and other standard inequality indices reduce to a common form. Perfect equality—the absence of inequality—exists when and only when the inequality ratio,  , equals 1 for all j units in some population (for example, there is perfect income equality when everyone's income   equals the mean income  , so that   for everyone). Measures of inequality, then, are measures of the average deviations of the   from 1; the greater the average deviation, the greater the inequality. Based on these observations the inequality indices have this common form:[41]

 

where pj weights the units by their population share, and f(rj) is a function of the deviation of each unit's rj from 1, the point of equality. The insight of this generalised inequality index is that inequality indices differ because they employ different functions of the distance of the inequality ratios (the rj) from 1.

Of income distributions

 
Derivation of the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient for global income in 2011

Gini coefficients of income are calculated on a market income and a disposable income basis. The Gini coefficient on market income—sometimes referred to as a pre-tax Gini coefficient—is calculated on income before taxes and transfers. It measures inequality in income without considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country. The Gini coefficient on disposable income—sometimes referred to as the after-tax Gini coefficient—is calculated on income after taxes and transfers. It measures inequality in income after considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country.[7][42][43]

For OECD countries over the 2008–2009 period, the Gini coefficient (pre-taxes and transfers) for a total population ranged between 0.34 and 0.53, with South Korea the lowest and Italy the highest. The Gini coefficient (after-taxes and transfers) for a total population ranged between 0.25 and 0.48, with Denmark the lowest and Mexico the highest. For the United States, the country with the largest population among OECD countries, the pre-tax Gini index was 0.49, and the after-tax Gini index was 0.38 in 2008–2009. The OECD average for total populations in OECD countries was 0.46 for the pre-tax income Gini index and 0.31 for the after-tax income Gini index.[7][44] Taxes and social spending that were in place in 2008–2009 period in OECD countries significantly lowered effective income inequality, and in general, "European countries—especially Nordic and Continental welfare states—achieve lower levels of income inequality than other countries."[45]

Using the Gini can help quantify differences in welfare and compensation policies and philosophies. However, it should be borne in mind that the Gini coefficient can be misleading when used to make political comparisons between large and small countries or those with different immigration policies (see limitations section).

The Gini coefficient for the entire world has been estimated by various parties to be between 0.61 and 0.68.[11][12][46] The graph shows the values expressed as a percentage in their historical development for a number of countries.

 

Regional income Gini indices

According to UNICEF, Latin America and the Caribbean region had the highest net income Gini index in the world at 48.3, on an unweighted average basis in 2008. The remaining regional averages were: sub-Saharan Africa (44.2), Asia (40.4), Middle East and North Africa (39.2), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (35.4), and High-income Countries (30.9). Using the same method, the United States is claimed to have a Gini index of 36, while South Africa had the highest income Gini index score of 67.8.[47]

World income Gini index since 1800s

Taking income distribution of all human beings, worldwide income inequality has been constantly increasing since the early 19th century. There was a steady increase in the global income inequality Gini score from 1820 to 2002, with a significant increase between 1980 and 2002. This trend appears to have peaked and begun a reversal with rapid economic growth in emerging economies, particularly in the large populations of BRIC countries.[48]

The table below presents the estimated world income Gini coefficients over the last 200 years, as calculated by Milanovic.[49]

Income Gini coefficient - World, 1820–2005
Year World Gini coefficients[11][47][50]
1820 0.43
1850 0.53
1870 0.56
1913 0.61
1929 0.62
1950 0.64
1960 0.64
1980 0.66
2002 0.71
2005 0.68

More detailed data from similar sources plots a continuous decline since 1988. This is attributed to globalization increasing incomes for billions of poor people, mostly in countries like China and India. Developing countries like Brazil have also improved basic services like health care, education, and sanitation; others like Chile and Mexico have enacted more progressive tax policies.[51]

Income Gini coefficient - World, 1988–2013
Year World Gini coefficients[52]
1988 0.80
1993 0.76
1998 0.74
2003 0.72
2008 0.70
2013 0.65

Of social development

The Gini coefficient is widely used in fields as diverse as sociology, economics, health science, ecology, engineering, and agriculture.[53] For example, in social sciences and economics, in addition to income Gini coefficients, scholars have published education Gini coefficients and opportunity Gini coefficients.

Education

Education Gini index estimates the inequality in education for a given population.[54] It is used to discern trends in social development through educational attainment over time. A study across 85 countries by three World Bank economists, Vinod Thomas, Yan Wang, and Xibo Fan, estimated Mali had the highest education Gini index of 0.92 in 1990 (implying very high inequality in educational attainment across the population), while the United States had the lowest education inequality Gini index of 0.14. Between 1960 and 1990, China, India and South Korea had the fastest drop in education inequality Gini Index. They also claim education Gini index for the United States slightly increased over the 1980–1990 period.

Opportunity

Similar in concept to the Gini income coefficient, the Gini opportunity coefficient measures inequality in opportunities.[55][56][57] The concept builds on Amartya Sen's suggestion[58] that inequality coefficients of social development should be premised on the process of enlarging people's choices and enhancing their capabilities, rather than on the process of reducing income inequality. Kovacevic, in a review of the Gini opportunity coefficient, explained that the coefficient estimates how well a society enables its citizens to achieve success in life where the success is based on a person's choices, efforts and talents, not his background defined by a set of predetermined circumstances at birth, such as gender, race, place of birth, parent's income and circumstances beyond the control of that individual.

In 2003, Roemer[55][59] reported Italy and Spain exhibited the largest opportunity inequality Gini index amongst advanced economies.

Income mobility

In 1978, Anthony Shorrocks introduced a measure based on income Gini coefficients to estimate income mobility.[60] This measure, generalized by Maasoumi and Zandvakili,[61] is now generally referred to as Shorrocks index, sometimes as Shorrocks mobility index or Shorrocks rigidity index. It attempts to estimate whether the income inequality Gini coefficient is permanent or temporary and to what extent a country or region enables economic mobility to its people so that they can move from one (e.g., bottom 20%) income quantile to another (e.g., middle 20%) over time. In other words, the Shorrocks index compares inequality of short-term earnings, such as the annual income of households, to inequality of long-term earnings, such as 5-year or 10-year total income for the same households.

Shorrocks index is calculated in several different ways, a common approach being from the ratio of income Gini coefficients between short-term and long-term for the same region or country.[62]

A 2010 study using social security income data for the United States since 1937 and Gini-based Shorrock's indices concludes that income mobility in the United States has had a complicated history, primarily due to the mass influx of women into the American labor force after World War II. Income inequality and income mobility trends have been different for men and women workers between 1937 and the 2000s. When men and women are considered together, the Gini coefficient-based Shorrocks index trends imply long-term income inequality has been substantially reduced among all workers, in recent decades for the United States.[62] Other scholars, using just 1990s data or other short periods have come to different conclusions.[63] For example, Sastre and Ayala conclude from their study of income Gini coefficient data between 1993 and 1998 for six developed economies that France had the least income mobility, Italy the highest, and the United States and Germany intermediate levels of income mobility over those five years.[64]

Features

The Gini coefficient has features that make it useful as a measure of dispersion in a population, and inequalities in particular.[40]

Limitations

The Gini coefficient is a relative measure. The Gini coefficient of a developing country can rise (due to increasing inequality of income) even when the number of people in absolute poverty decreases.[65] This is because the Gini coefficient measures relative, not absolute, wealth. Changing income inequality, measured by Gini coefficients, can be due to structural changes in a society such as growing population (increased birth rates, aging populations, increased divorce rates, extended family households splitting into nuclear families, emigration, immigration) and income mobility.[66] Gini coefficients are simple, and this simplicity can lead to oversights and can confuse the comparison of different populations; for example, while both Bangladesh (per capita income of $1,693) and the Netherlands (per capita income of $42,183) had an income Gini coefficient of 0.31 in 2010,[67] the quality of life, economic opportunity and absolute income in these countries are very different, i.e. countries may have identical Gini coefficients, but differ greatly in wealth. Basic necessities may be available to all in a developed economy, while in an undeveloped economy with the same Gini coefficient, basic necessities may be unavailable to most or unequally available due to lower absolute wealth.

Table A. Different income distributions with the same Gini index[40]
Household group Country A annual income ($) Country B annual income ($)
1 20,000 9,000
2 30,000 40,000
3 40,000 48,000
4 50,000 48,000
5 60,000 55,000
Total income $200,000 $200,000
Country's Gini 0.2 0.2
Different income distributions with the same Gini coefficient

Even when the total income of a population is the same, in certain situations two countries with different income distributions can have the same Gini index (e.g. cases when income Lorenz Curves cross).[40] Table A illustrates one such situation. Both countries have a Gini coefficient of 0.2, but the average income distributions for household groups are different. As another example, in a population where the lowest 50% of individuals have no income, and the other 50% have equal income, the Gini coefficient is 0.5; whereas for another population where the lowest 75% of people have 25% of income and the top 25% have 75% of the income, the Gini index is also 0.5. Economies with similar incomes and Gini coefficients can have very different income distributions. Bellù and Liberati claim that ranking income inequality between two populations is not always possible based on their Gini indices.[68] Similarly, computational social scientist Fabian Stephany illustrates that income inequality within the population, e.g., in specific socio-economic groups of same age and education, also remains undetected by conventional Gini indices.[69]

Extreme wealth inequality, yet low-income Gini coefficient

A Gini index does not contain information about absolute national or personal incomes. Populations can simultaneously have very low-income Gini indices and very high wealth Gini indexes. By measuring inequality in income, the Gini ignores the differential efficiency of the use of household income. By ignoring wealth (except as it contributes to income), the Gini can create the appearance of inequality when the people compared are at different stages in their life. Wealthy countries such as Sweden can show a low Gini coefficient for the disposable income of 0.31, thereby appearing equal, yet have a very high Gini coefficient for wealth of 0.79 to 0.86, suggesting an extremely unequal wealth distribution in its society.[70][71] These factors are not assessed in income-based Gini.

Table B. Same income distributions, but different Gini Index
Household number Country Annual Income ($) Household combined number Country A combined Annual Income ($)
1 20,000 1 & 2 50,000
2 30,000
3 40,000 3 & 4 90,000
4 50,000
5 60,000 5 & 6 130,000
6 70,000
7 80,000 7 & 8 170,000
8 90,000
9 120,000 9 & 10 270,000
10 150,000
Total Income $710,000 $710,000
Country's Gini 0.303 0.293
Small sample bias – sparsely populated regions more likely to have low Gini coefficient

Gini index has a downward-bias for small populations.[72] Counties or states or countries with small populations and less diverse economies will tend to report small Gini coefficients. For economically diverse large population groups, a much higher coefficient is expected than for each of its regions. For example, taking the world economy as a whole and income distribution for all human beings, different scholars estimate the global Gini index to range between 0.61 and 0.68.[11][12] As with other inequality coefficients, the Gini coefficient is influenced by the granularity of the measurements. For example, five 20% quantiles (low granularity) will usually yield a lower Gini coefficient than twenty 5% quantiles (high granularity) for the same distribution. Philippe Monfort has shown that using inconsistent or unspecified granularity limits the usefulness of Gini coefficient measurements.[73]

The Gini coefficient measure gives different results when applied to individuals instead of households, for the same economy and same income distributions. If household data is used, the measured value of income Gini depends on how the household is defined. The comparison is not meaningful when different populations are not measured with consistent definitions.

Deininger and Squire (1996) show that the income Gini coefficient based on individual income rather than household income is different. For example, for the United States, they found that the individual income-based Gini index was 0.35, while for France, 0.43. According to their individual-focused method, in the 108 countries they studied, South Africa had the world's highest Gini coefficient at 0.62, Malaysia had Asia's highest Gini coefficient at 0.5, Brazil the highest at 0.57 in Latin America and the Caribbean region, and Turkey the highest at 0.5 in OECD countries.[74]

Table C. Household money income distributions and Gini Index, US[75]
Income bracket (in 2010 adjusted dollars) % of Population 1979 % of Population 2010
Under $15,000 14.6% 13.7%
$15,000 – $24,999 11.9% 12.0%
$25,000 – $34,999 12.1% 10.9%
$35,000 – $49,999 15.4% 13.9%
$50,000 – $74,999 22.1% 17.7%
$75,000 – $99,999 12.4% 11.4%
$100,000 – $149,999 8.3% 12.1%
$150,000 – $199,999 2.0% 4.5%
$200,000 and over 1.2% 3.9%
Total Households 80,776,000 118,682,000
United States' Gini on pre-tax basis 0.404 0.469
Gini coefficient is unable to discern the effects of structural changes in populations[66]

Expanding on the importance of life-span measures, the Gini coefficient as a point-estimate of equality at a certain time ignores life-span changes in income. Typically, increases in the proportion of young or old members of a society will drive apparent changes in equality simply because people generally have lower incomes and wealth when they are young than when they are old. Because of this, factors such as age distribution within a population and mobility within income classes can create the appearance of inequality when none exist, taking into account demographic effects. Thus a given economy may have a higher Gini coefficient at any timepoint compared to another, while the Gini coefficient calculated over individuals' lifetime income is lower than the apparently more equal (at a given point in time) economy's.[clarification needed][15] Essentially, what matters is not just inequality in any particular year but the distribution composition over time.

Billionaire Thomas Kwok claimed the income Gini coefficient for Hong Kong has been high (0.434 in 2010[67]), in part because of structural changes in its population. Over recent decades, Hong Kong has witnessed increasing numbers of small households, elderly households and elderly living alone. The combined income is now split into more households. Many older people live separate from their children in Hong Kong. These social changes have caused substantial changes in household income distribution. The income Gini coefficient, claims Kwok, does not discern these structural changes in its society.[66] Household money income distribution for the United States, summarized in Table C of this section, confirms that this issue is not limited to just Hong Kong. According to the US Census Bureau, between 1979 and 2010, the population of the United States experienced structural changes in overall households; the income for all income brackets increased in inflation-adjusted terms, household income distributions shifted into higher income brackets over time, while the income Gini coefficient increased.[75][76]

Another limitation of the Gini coefficient is that it is not a proper measure of egalitarianism, as it only measures income dispersion. For example, suppose two equally egalitarian countries pursue different immigration policies. In that case, the country accepting a higher proportion of low-income or impoverished migrants will report a higher Gini coefficient and, therefore, may exhibit more income inequality.

Inability to value benefits and income from informal economy affects Gini coefficient accuracy

Some countries distribute benefits that are difficult to value. Countries that provide subsidized housing, medical care, education or other such services are difficult to value objectively, as it depends on the quality and extent of the benefit. In absence of a free market, valuing these income transfers as household income is subjective. The theoretical model of the Gini coefficient is limited to accepting correct or incorrect subjective assumptions.

In subsistence-driven and informal economies, people may have significant income in other forms than money, for example, through subsistence farming or bartering. These income tend to accrue to the segment of population below the poverty line or very poor in emerging and transitional economy countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe. Informal economy accounts for over half of global employment and as much as 90 per cent of employment in some of the poorer sub-Saharan countries with high official Gini inequality coefficients. Schneider et al., in their 2010 study of 162 countries,[77] report about 31.2%, or about $20 trillion, of world's GDP is informal. In developing countries, the informal economy predominates for all income brackets except the richer, urban upper-income bracket populations. Even in developed economies, 8% (United States) to 27% (Italy) of each nation's GDP is informal. The resulting informal income predominates as a livelihood activity for those in the lowest income brackets.[78] The value and distribution of the incomes from informal or underground economy is difficult to quantify, making true income Gini coefficients estimates difficult.[79][80] Different assumptions and quantifications of these incomes will yield different Gini coefficients.[81][82][83]

Gini has some mathematical limitations as well. It is not additive and different sets of people cannot be averaged to obtain the Gini coefficient of all the people in the sets.

Alternatives

Given the limitations of the Gini coefficient, other statistical methods are used in combination or as an alternative measure of population dispersity. For example, entropy measures are frequently used (e.g. the Atkinson index or the Theil Index and Mean log deviation as special cases of the generalized entropy index). These measures attempt to compare the distribution of resources by intelligent agents in the market with a maximum entropy random distribution, which would occur if these agents acted like non-interacting particles in a closed system following the laws of statistical physics.

Relation to other statistical measures

There is a summary measure of the diagnostic ability of a binary classifier system that is also called the Gini coefficient, which is defined as twice the area between the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and its diagonal. It is related to the AUC (Area Under the ROC Curve) measure of performance given by  [84] and to Mann–Whitney U. Although both Gini coefficients are defined as areas between certain curves and share certain properties, there is no simple direct relationship between the Gini coefficient of statistical dispersion and the Gini coefficient of a classifier.

The Gini index is also related to the Pietra index — both of which measure statistical heterogeneity and are derived from the Lorenz curve and the diagonal line.[85][86][23]

In certain fields such as ecology, inverse Simpson's index   is used to quantify diversity, and this should not be confused with the Simpson index  . These indicators are related to Gini. The inverse Simpson index increases with diversity, unlike the Simpson index and Gini coefficient, which decrease with diversity. The Simpson index is in the range [0, 1], where 0 means maximum and 1 means minimum diversity (or heterogeneity). Since diversity indices typically increase with increasing heterogeneity, the Simpson index is often transformed into inverse Simpson, or using the complement  , known as the Gini-Simpson Index.[87]

Gini coefficients for pre-modern societies

In recent decades, researchers have attempted to estimate Gini coefficients for pre-20th century societies. In the absence of household income surveys and income taxes, scholars have relied on proxy variables. These include wealth taxes in medieval European city states, patterns of landownership in Roman Egypt, variation of the size of houses in societies from ancient Greece to Aztec Mexico, and inheritance and dowries in Babylonian society. Other data does not directly document variations in wealth or income but are known to reflect inequality, such as the ratio of rents to wages or of labor to capital.[88]

Other uses

Although the Gini coefficient is most popular in economics, it can, in theory, be applied in any field of science that studies a distribution. For example, in ecology, the Gini coefficient has been used as a measure of biodiversity, where the cumulative proportion of species is plotted against the cumulative proportion of individuals.[89] In health, it has been used as a measure of the inequality of health-related quality of life in a population.[90] In education, it has been used as a measure of the inequality of universities.[91] In chemistry it has been used to express the selectivity of protein kinase inhibitors against a panel of kinases.[92] In engineering, it has been used to evaluate the fairness achieved by Internet routers in scheduling packet transmissions from different flows of traffic.[93]

The Gini coefficient is sometimes used for the measurement of the discriminatory power of rating systems in credit risk management.[94]

A 2005 study accessed US census data to measure home computer ownership and used the Gini coefficient to measure inequalities amongst whites and African Americans. Results indicated that although decreasing overall, home computer ownership inequality was substantially smaller among white households.[95]

A 2016 peer-reviewed study titled Employing the Gini coefficient to measure participation inequality in treatment-focused Digital Health Social Networks[96] illustrated that the Gini coefficient was helpful and accurate in measuring shifts in inequality, however as a standalone metric it failed to incorporate overall network size.

Discriminatory power refers to a credit risk model's ability to differentiate between defaulting and non-defaulting clients. The formula  , in the calculation section above, may be used for the final model and at the individual model factor level to quantify the discriminatory power of individual factors. It is related to the accuracy ratio in population assessment models.

The Gini coefficient has also been applied to analyze inequality in dating apps.[97][98]

Kaminskiy and Krivtsov[99] extended the concept of the Gini coefficient from economics to reliability theory and proposed a Gini–type coefficient that helps to assess the degree of aging of non−repairable systems or aging and rejuvenation of repairable systems. The coefficient is defined between -1 and 1 and can be used in both empirical and parametric life distributions. It takes negative values for the class of decreasing failure rate distributions and point processes with decreasing failure intensity rate and is positive for the increasing failure rate distributions and point processes with increasing failure intensity rate. The value of zero corresponds to the exponential life distribution or the Homogeneous Poisson Process.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Gini index (World Bank estimate)". data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
  2. ^ "Global wealth databook 2019" (PDF). Credit Suisse. (PDF) from the original on 23 October 2019.
  3. ^ "Credit Suisse Research Institute, Global wealth report 2021" (PDF). Credit Suisse. June 2021. p. 17. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  4. ^ "Current Population Survey (CPS) – Definitions and Explanations". US Census Bureau.
  5. ^ Note: Gini coefficient could be near one only in a large population where a few persons has all the income. In the special case of just two people, where one has no income, and the other has all the income, the Gini coefficient is 0.5. For five people, where four have no income, and the fifth has all the income, the Gini coefficient is 0.8. See: FAO, United Nations – Inequality Analysis, The Gini Index Module 13 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine (PDF format), fao.org.
  6. ^ Gini, Corrado (1936). "On the Measure of Concentration with Special Reference to Income and Statistics", Colorado College Publication, General Series No. 208, 73–79.
  7. ^ a b c . OECD. 2012. Archived from the original on 9 November 2014.
  8. ^ Q4 snapshots/KPMG_South Africa 2013Q4.pdf "South Africa Snapshot, Q4 2013" (PDF). KPMG. 2013. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)[dead link]
  9. ^ . United Nations Development Program. 2012. Archived from the original on 12 July 2014.
  10. ^ Schüssler, Mike (16 July 2014). "The Gini is still in the bottle". Money Web. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  11. ^ a b c d Hillebrand, Evan (June 2009). (PDF). FAO, United Nations – Economic and Social Development Department. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2017.
  12. ^ a b c Nations, United (2011). (PDF). United Nations Development Program. pp. 72–74. ISBN 978-0-230-28445-6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 April 2011.
  13. ^ Yitzhaki, Shlomo (1998). "More than a Dozen Alternative Ways of Spelling Gini" (PDF). Economic Inequality. 8: 13–30. (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2012.
  14. ^ Sung, Myung Jae (August 2010). "Population Aging, Mobility of Quarterly Incomes, and Annual Income Inequality: Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Findings". CiteSeerX 10.1.1.365.4156. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ a b Blomquist, N. (1981). "A comparison of distributions of annual and lifetime income: Sweden around 1970". Review of Income and Wealth. 27 (3): 243–264. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00227.x. S2CID 154519005.
  16. ^ Gini, C. (1909). "Concentration and dependency ratios" (in Italian). English translation in Rivista di Politica Economica, 87 (1997), 769–789.
  17. ^ Gini, C (1912). Variabilità e Mutuabilità. Contributo allo Studio delle Distribuzioni e delle Relazioni Statistiche. Bologna: C. Cuppini.
  18. ^ "Who, What, Why: What is the Gini coefficient?". BBC News. 12 March 2015. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
  19. ^ "cumulative distribution function - How to compute the Wealth Lorenz curve with negative values?". Cross Validated. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  20. ^ Sen, Amartya (1977), On Economic Inequality (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  21. ^ Treanor, Jill (13 October 2015). "Half of world's wealth now in hands of 1% of population". The Guardian.
  22. ^ "Gini Coefficient". Wolfram Mathworld.
  23. ^ a b c McDonald, James B; Jensen, Bartell C. (December 1979). "An Analysis of Some Properties of Alternative Measures of Income Inequality Based on the Gamma Distribution Function". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 74 (368): 856–860. doi:10.1080/01621459.1979.10481042.
  24. ^ a b Crow, E. L., & Shimizu, K. (Eds.). (1988). Lognormal distributions: Theory and applications (Vol. 88). New York: M. Dekker, page 11.
  25. ^ "Dirac Delta Function - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  26. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Uniform Distribution". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  27. ^ "Exponential Distribution | Definition | Memoryless Random Variable". www.probabilitycourse.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  28. ^ For the log-normal with   = 0,   = 0;   = 0.
  29. ^ "Wolfram MathWorld: The Web's Most Extensive Mathematics Resource". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  30. ^ "Wolfram MathWorld: The Web's Most Extensive Mathematics Resource". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  31. ^ Turney, Shaun (20 May 2022). "Chi-Square (Χ²) Distributions | Definition & Examples". Scribbr. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  32. ^ "Weibull Distribution: Characteristics of the Weibull Distribution". www.weibull.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  33. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Beta Distribution". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  34. ^ "The Log-Logistic Distribution". www.randomservices.org. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  35. ^ Abdon, Mitch (23 May 2011). "Bootstrapping Gini". Statadaily: Unsolicited advice for the interested. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  36. ^ Giles (2004).
  37. ^ Jasso, Guillermina (1979). "On Gini's Mean Difference and Gini's Index of Concentration". American Sociological Review. 44 (5): 867–870. doi:10.2307/2094535. JSTOR 2094535.
  38. ^ Deaton (1997), p. 139.
  39. ^ Allison, Paul D. (1979). "Reply to Jasso". American Sociological Review. 44 (5): 870–872. doi:10.2307/2094536. JSTOR 2094536.
  40. ^ a b c d Bellù, Lorenzo Giovanni; Liberati, Paolo (2006). (PDF). Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 July 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  41. ^ Firebaugh, Glenn (1999). "Empirics of World Income Inequality". American Journal of Sociology. 104 (6): 1597–1630. doi:10.1086/210218. S2CID 154973184.. See also ——— (2003). "Inequality: What it is and how it is measured". The New Geography of Global Income Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01067-3.
  42. ^ Kakwani, N. C. (April 1977). "Applications of Lorenz Curves in Economic Analysis". Econometrica. 45 (3): 719–728. doi:10.2307/1911684. JSTOR 1911684.
  43. ^ Chu, Ke-young; Davoodi, Hamid; Gupta, Sanjeev (March 2000). "Income Distribution and Tax and Government Social Spending Policies in Developing Countries" (PDF). International Monetary Fund. (PDF) from the original on 30 August 2000.
  44. ^ . Eurofound. 26 August 2009. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008.
  45. ^ Wang, Chen; Caminada, Koen; Goudswaard, Kees (2012). "The redistributive effect of social transfer programmes and taxes: A decomposition across countries". International Social Security Review. 65 (3): 27–48. doi:10.1111/j.1468-246X.2012.01435.x. hdl:1887/3207160. S2CID 154029963.
  46. ^ Sutcliffe, Bob (April 2007). "Postscript to the article 'World inequality and globalization' (Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Spring 2004)" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 21 June 2007. Retrieved 13 December 2007.
  47. ^ a b Ortiz, Isabel; Cummins, Matthew (April 2011). (PDF). UNICEF. p. 26. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  48. ^ Milanovic, Branko (September 2011). "More or Less". Finance & Development. 48 (3).
  49. ^ Milanovic, Branko (2009). "Global Inequality and the Global Inequality Extraction Ratio" (PDF). World Bank. (PDF) from the original on 11 November 2013.
  50. ^ Berry, Albert; Serieux, John (September 2006). "Riding the Elephants: The Evolution of World Economic Growth and Income Distribution at the End of the Twentieth Century (1980–2000)" (PDF). United Nations (DESA Working Paper No. 27). (PDF) from the original on 17 February 2009.
  51. ^ Gharib, Malaka (25 January 2017). "What The Stat About The 8 Richest Men Doesn't Tell Us About Inequality". NPR.
  52. ^ World Bank. "Poverty and Prosperity 2016 / Taking on Inequality" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 15 November 2016.. Figure O.10 Global Inequality, 1988–2013
  53. ^ Sadras, V. O.; Bongiovanni, R. (2004). "Use of Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients to assess yield inequality within paddocks". Field Crops Research. 90 (2–3): 303–310. doi:10.1016/j.fcr.2004.04.003.
  54. ^ Thomas, Vinod; Wang, Yan; Fan, Xibo (January 2001). (PDF). Policy Research Working Papers. The World Bank. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.608.6919. doi:10.1596/1813-9450-2525. hdl:10986/19738. S2CID 6069811. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2013. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  55. ^ a b Roemer, John E. (September 2006). Economic development as opportunity equalization (Report). Yale University. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.403.4725. SSRN 931479.
  56. ^ Weymark, John (2003). "Generalized Gini Indices of Equality of Opportunity". Journal of Economic Inequality. 1 (1): 5–24. doi:10.1023/A:1023923807503. S2CID 133596675.
  57. ^ Kovacevic, Milorad (November 2010). (PDF). United Nations Development Program. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2011.
  58. ^ Atkinson, Anthony B. (1999). 1998 contributions of sen to welf economics.pdf "The contributions of Amartya Sen to Welfare Economics" (PDF). The Scandinavian Journal of Economics. 101 (2): 173–190. doi:10.1111/1467-9442.00151. JSTOR 3440691. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help)[dead link]
  59. ^ Roemer, John E.; et al. (March 2003). "To what extent do fiscal regimes equalize opportunities for income acquisition among citizens?". Journal of Public Economics. 87 (3–4): 539–565. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.414.6220. doi:10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00145-1.
  60. ^ Shorrocks, Anthony (December 1978). "Income inequality and income mobility". Journal of Economic Theory. 19 (2): 376–393. doi:10.1016/0022-0531(78)90101-1.
  61. ^ Maasoumi, Esfandiar; Zandvakili, Sourushe (1986). "A class of generalized measures of mobility with applications". Economics Letters. 22 (1): 97–102. doi:10.1016/0165-1765(86)90150-3.
  62. ^ a b Kopczuk, Wojciech; Saez, Emmanuel; Song, Jae (2010). "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data Since 1937" (PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 125 (1): 91–128. doi:10.1162/qjec.2010.125.1.91. JSTOR 40506278. (PDF) from the original on 13 May 2013.
  63. ^ Chen, Wen-Hao (March 2009). "Cross-national Differences in Income Mobility: Evidence from Canada, the United States, Great Britain and Germany". Review of Income and Wealth. 55 (1): 75–100. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4991.2008.00307.x. S2CID 62886186.
  64. ^ Sastre, Mercedes; Ayala, Luis (2002). "Europe vs. The United States: Is There a Trade-Off Between Mobility and Inequality?" (PDF). Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. (PDF) from the original on 12 June 2006.
  65. ^ Mellor, John W. (2 June 1989). "Dramatic Poverty Reduction in the Third World: Prospects and Needed Action" (PDF). International Food Policy Research Institute: 18–20. (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  66. ^ a b c KWOK Kwok Chuen (2010). (PDF). The Government of Hong Kong, China. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 December 2010.
  67. ^ a b "The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development (2010 Human Development Report – see Stat Tables)". United Nations Development Program. 2011. pp. 152–156.
  68. ^ De Maio, Fernando G. (2007). "Income inequality measures". Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 61 (10): 849–852. doi:10.1136/jech.2006.052969. PMC 2652960. PMID 17873219.
  69. ^ Stephany, Fabian (1 December 2017). "Who are Your Joneses? Socio-Specific Income Inequality and Trust". Social Indicators Research. 134 (3): 877–898. doi:10.1007/s11205-016-1460-9. ISSN 1573-0921. PMC 5684274. PMID 29187771.
  70. ^ Domeij, David; Flodén, Martin (2010). "Inequality Trends in Sweden 1978–2004". Review of Economic Dynamics. 13 (1): 179–208. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.629.9417. doi:10.1016/j.red.2009.10.005.
  71. ^ Domeij, David; Klein, Paul (January 2000). (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 May 2003.
  72. ^ Deltas, George (February 2003). "The Small-Sample Bias of the Gini Coefficient: Results and Implications for Empirical Research". The Review of Economics and Statistics. 85 (1): 226–234. doi:10.1162/rest.2003.85.1.226. JSTOR 3211637. S2CID 57572560.
  73. ^ Monfort, Philippe (2008). "Convergence of EU regions: Measures and evolution" (PDF). European Union – Europa. p. 6. (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2012.
  74. ^ Deininger, Klaus; Squire, Lyn (1996). "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality" (PDF). World Bank Economic Review. 10 (3): 565–591. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.314.5610. doi:10.1093/wber/10.3.565. (PDF) from the original on 16 July 2007.
  75. ^ a b "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010 (see Table A-2)" (PDF). Census Bureau, Dept of Commerce, United States. September 2011. (PDF) from the original on 23 September 2011.
  76. ^ Congressional Budget Office: Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007. October 2011. see pp. i–x, with definitions on ii–iii
  77. ^ Schneider, Friedrich; Buehn, Andreas; Montenegro, Claudio E. (2010). "New Estimates for the Shadow Economies all over the World". International Economic Journal. 24 (4): 443–461. doi:10.1080/10168737.2010.525974. hdl:10986/4929. S2CID 56060172.
  78. ^ The Informal Economy (PDF). International Institute for Environment and Development, United Kingdom. 2011. ISBN 978-1-84369-822-7. (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2012.
  79. ^ Feldstein, Martin (August 1998). (PDF). US Federal Reserve. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 August 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  80. ^ Taylor, John; Weerapana, Akila (2009). Principles of Microeconomics: Global Financial Crisis Edition. pp. 416–418. ISBN 978-1-4390-7821-1.
  81. ^ Rosser, J. Barkley Jr.; Rosser, Marina V.; Ahmed, Ehsan (March 2000). "Income Inequality and the Informal Economy in Transition Economies". Journal of Comparative Economics. 28 (1): 156–171. doi:10.1006/jcec.2000.1645. S2CID 49552052.
  82. ^ Krstić, Gorana; Sanfey, Peter (February 2010). "Earnings inequality and the informal economy: evidence from Serbia" (PDF). European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2012.
  83. ^ Schneider, Friedrich (December 2004). The Size of the Shadow Economies of 145 Countries all over the World: First Results over the Period 1999 to 2003 (Report). hdl:10419/20729. SSRN 636661.
  84. ^ Hand, David J.; Till, Robert J. (2001). "A Simple Generalisation of the Area Under the ROC Curve for Multiple Class Classification Problems" (PDF). Machine Learning. 45 (2): 171–186. doi:10.1023/A:1010920819831. S2CID 43144161. (PDF) from the original on 10 August 2013.
  85. ^ Eliazar, Iddo I.; Sokolov, Igor M. (2010). "Measuring statistical heterogeneity: The Pietra index". Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications. 389 (1): 117–125. Bibcode:2010PhyA..389..117E. doi:10.1016/j.physa.2009.08.006.
  86. ^ Lee, Wen-Chung (1999). (PDF). Statistics in Medicine. 18 (4): 455–471. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19990228)18:4<455::AID-SIM44>3.0.CO;2-A. PMID 10070686. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 August 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  87. ^ Peet, Robert K. (1974). "The Measurement of Species Diversity". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 5: 285–307. doi:10.1146/annurev.es.05.110174.001441. JSTOR 2096890. S2CID 83517584.
  88. ^ Walter Scheidel (2017). The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-0-691-16502-8.
  89. ^ Wittebolle, Lieven; Marzorati, Massimo; et al. (2009). "Initial community evenness favours functionality under selective stress". Nature. 458 (7238): 623–626. Bibcode:2009Natur.458..623W. doi:10.1038/nature07840. PMID 19270679. S2CID 4419280.
  90. ^ Asada, Yukiko (2005). "Assessment of the health of Americans: the average health-related quality of life and its inequality across individuals and groups". Population Health Metrics. 3: 7. doi:10.1186/1478-7954-3-7. PMC 1192818. PMID 16014174.
  91. ^ Halffman, Willem; Leydesdorff, Loet (2010). "Is Inequality Among Universities Increasing? Gini Coefficients and the Elusive Rise of Elite Universities". Minerva. 48 (1): 55–72. arXiv:1001.2921. doi:10.1007/s11024-010-9141-3. PMC 2850525. PMID 20401157.
  92. ^ Graczyk, Piotr (2007). "Gini Coefficient: A New Way To Express Selectivity of Kinase Inhibitors against a Family of Kinases". Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 50 (23): 5773–5779. doi:10.1021/jm070562u. PMID 17948979.
  93. ^ Shi, Hongyuan; Sethu, Harish (2003). "Greedy Fair Queueing: A Goal-Oriented Strategy for Fair Real-Time Packet Scheduling". Proceedings of the 24th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium. IEEE Computer Society. pp. 345–356. ISBN 978-0-7695-2044-5.
  94. ^ Christodoulakis, George A.; Satchell, Stephen, eds. (November 2007). The Analytics of Risk Model Validation (Quantitative Finance). Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7506-8158-2.
  95. ^ Chakraborty, J; Bosman, MM (2005). "Measuring the digital divide in the United States: race, income, and personal computer ownership". Prof Geogr. 57 (3): 395–410. doi:10.1111/j.0033-0124.2005.00486.x. S2CID 154401826.
  96. ^ van Mierlo, T; Hyatt, D; Ching, A (2016). "Employing the Gini coefficient to measure participation inequality in treatment-focused Digital Health Social Networks". Netw Model Anal Health Inform Bioinforma. 5 (32): 32. doi:10.1007/s13721-016-0140-7. PMC 5082574. PMID 27840788.
  97. ^ worst-online-dater (25 March 2015). "Tinder Experiments II: Guys, unless you are really hot you are probably better off not wasting your…". Medium. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  98. ^ Kopf, Dan (15 August 2017). "These statistics show why it's so hard to be an average man on dating apps". Quartz. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  99. ^ Kaminskiy, M.P.; Krivtsov, V.V. (2011). "A Gini-Type Index for Aging/Rejuvenating Objects". Mathematical and Statistical Models and Methods in Reliability. Birkhäuser Boston: Springer. pp. 133–140. ISBN 978-0-8176-4970-8.

Further reading

  • Amiel, Y.; Cowell, F. A. (1999). Thinking about Inequality. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-46696-7.
  • Anand, Sudhir (1983). Inequality and Poverty in Malaysia. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-520153-6.
  • Brown, Malcolm (1994). "Using Gini-Style Indices to Evaluate the Spatial Patterns of Health Practitioners: Theoretical Considerations and an Application Based on Alberta Data". Social Science & Medicine. 38 (9): 1243–1256. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(94)90189-9. PMID 8016689.
  • Chakravarty, S. R. (1990). Ethical Social Index Numbers. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-52274-6.
  • Deaton, Angus (1997). Analysis of Household Surveys. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-585-23787-9.
  • Dixon, Philip M.; Weiner, Jacob; Mitchell-Olds, Thomas; Woodley, Robert (1987). "Bootstrapping the Gini coefficient of inequality". Ecology. 68 (5): 1548–1551. doi:10.2307/1939238. JSTOR 1939238. S2CID 84940050.
  • Dorfman, Robert (1979). "A Formula for the Gini Coefficient". The Review of Economics and Statistics. 61 (1): 146–149. doi:10.2307/1924845. JSTOR 1924845.
  • Firebaugh, Glenn (2003). The New Geography of Global Income Inequality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01067-3.
  • Gastwirth, Joseph L. (1972). "The Estimation of the Lorenz Curve and Gini Index". The Review of Economics and Statistics. 54 (3): 306–316. doi:10.2307/1937992. JSTOR 1937992.
  • Giles, David (2004). (PDF). Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. 66 (3): 425–433. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.202.6462. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0084.2004.00086.x. S2CID 16972099. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 May 2004.
  • Gini, Corrado (1912). Variabilità e mutabilità. Bibcode:1912vamu.book.....G. Reprinted in Pizetti, E.; Salvemini, T., eds. (1955). Memorie di metodologica statistica. Rome: Libreria Eredi Virgilio Veschi.
  • Gini, Corrado (1921). "Measurement of Inequality of Incomes". The Economic Journal. 31 (121): 124–126. doi:10.2307/2223319. JSTOR 2223319.
  • Giorgi, Giovanni Maria (1990). (PDF). Metron. 48: 183–231. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 August 2016.
  • Karagiannis, E.; Kovacevic, M. (2000). "A Method to Calculate the Jackknife Variance Estimator for the Gini Coefficient". Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. 62: 119–122. doi:10.1111/1468-0084.00163.
  • Mills, Jeffrey A.; Zandvakili, Sourushe (1997). "Statistical Inference via Bootstrapping for Measures of Inequality" (PDF). Journal of Applied Econometrics. 12 (2): 133–150. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.172.5003. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1255(199703)12:2<133::AID-JAE433>3.0.CO;2-H. hdl:10419/186818. JSTOR 2284908. (PDF) from the original on 18 July 2012.
  • Modarres, Reza; Gastwirth, Joseph L. (2006). "A Cautionary Note on Estimating the Standard Error of the Gini Index of Inequality". Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. 68 (3): 385–390. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0084.2006.00167.x. S2CID 122716409.
  • Morgan, James (1962). "The Anatomy of Income Distribution". The Review of Economics and Statistics. 44 (3): 270–283. doi:10.2307/1926398. JSTOR 1926398.
  • Ogwang, Tomson (2000). "A Convenient Method of Computing the Gini Index and its Standard Error". Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. 62: 123–129. doi:10.1111/1468-0084.00164.
  • Ogwang, Tomson (2004). "Calculating a Standard Error for the Gini Coefficient: Some Further Results: Reply". Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. 66 (3): 435–437. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0084.2004.00087.x. S2CID 122160535.
  • Xu, Kuan (January 2004). (PDF). Department of Economics, Dalhousie University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2006. Retrieved 1 June 2006. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) The Chinese version of this paper appears in Xu, Kuan (2003). "How Has the Literature on Gini's Index Evolved in the Past 80 Years?". China Economic Quarterly. 2: 757–778.
  • Yitzhaki, Shlomo (1991). "Calculating Jackknife Variance Estimators for Parameters of the Gini Method". Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. 9 (2): 235–239. doi:10.2307/1391792. JSTOR 1391792.

External links

  • Deutsche Bundesbank: , 2005 (on using e.g. the Gini coefficient for risk evaluation of loan portfolios)
  • Forbes Article, In praise of inequality
  • Measuring Software Project Risk With The Gini Coefficient, an application of the Gini coefficient to software
  • The World Bank: Measuring Inequality
  • Travis Hale, University of Texas Inequality Project:The Theoretical Basics of Popular Inequality Measures, online computation of examples: 1A, 1B
  • Article from The Guardian analysing inequality in the UK 1974–2006
  • World Income Inequality Database
  • Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries
  • U.S. Income Distribution: Just How Unequal?

gini, coefficient, confused, with, gini, impurity, economics, also, known, gini, index, gini, ratio, measure, statistical, dispersion, intended, represent, income, inequality, wealth, inequality, within, nation, social, group, developed, statistician, sociolog. Not to be confused with Gini impurity In economics the Gini coefficient ˈ dʒ iː n i JEE nee also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality or the wealth inequality within a nation or a social group The Gini coefficient was developed by the statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini World map of income inequality Gini coefficients by country as Based on World Bank data ranging from 1992 to 2020 1 Above 50 Between 45 to 50 Between 40 to 45 Between 35 to 40 Between 30 to 35 Below 30 No data A map showing Gini coefficients for wealth within countries for 2019 2 Global share of wealth by wealth group Redrawn from data from Credit Suisse 2021 3 The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency distribution such as the levels of income A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality where all income or wealth values are the same while a Gini coefficient of 1 or 100 reflects maximal inequality among values For example if everyone has the same income the Gini coefficient will be 0 In contrast if for a large number of people only one person has all the income or consumption and all others have none the Gini coefficient will be 1 4 5 The Gini coefficient was proposed by Corrado Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth 6 For OECD countries in the late 20th century considering the effect of taxes and transfer payments the income Gini coefficient ranged between 0 24 and 0 49 with Slovenia being the lowest and Mexico the highest 7 African countries had the highest pre tax Gini coefficients in 2008 2009 with South Africa having the world s highest variously estimated to be 0 63 to 0 7 8 9 although this figure drops to 0 52 after social assistance is taken into account and drops again to 0 47 after taxation 10 The global income Gini coefficient in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0 61 and 0 68 by various sources 11 12 There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient the same value may result from many different distribution curves The demographic structure should be taken into account Countries with an aging population or with an increased birth rate experience an increasing pre tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant Scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient 13 14 15 Contents 1 History 2 Definition 3 Calculation 3 1 Example two levels of income 3 2 Alternative expressions 3 3 Discrete probability distribution 3 4 Continuous probability distribution 3 5 Other approaches 4 Generalized inequality indices 5 Of income distributions 5 1 Regional income Gini indices 5 2 World income Gini index since 1800s 6 Of social development 6 1 Education 6 2 Opportunity 6 3 Income mobility 7 Features 8 Limitations 9 Alternatives 10 Relation to other statistical measures 11 Gini coefficients for pre modern societies 12 Other uses 13 See also 14 References 15 Further reading 16 External linksHistory EditThe Gini coefficient was developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper Variability and Mutability Italian Variabilita e mutabilita 16 17 Building on the work of American economist Max Lorenz Gini proposed that the difference between the hypothetical straight line depicting perfect equality and the actual line depicting people s incomes be used as a measure of inequality 18 Definition EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Gini coefficient news newspapers books scholar JSTOR May 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message Graphical representation of the Gini coefficient The graph shows that the Gini coefficient is equal to the area marked A divided by the sum of the areas marked A and B that is Gini A A B It is also equal to 2A and to 1 2B due to the fact that A B 0 5 since the axes scale from 0 to 1 The Gini coefficient is an index for the degree of inequality in the distribution of income wealth used to estimate how far a country s wealth or income distribution deviates from an equal distribution The Gini coefficient is usually defined mathematically based on the Lorenz curve which plots the proportion of the total income of the population y axis that is cumulatively earned by the bottom x of the population see diagram The line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area that lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve marked A in the diagram over the total area under the line of equality marked A and B in the diagram i e G A A B If there are no negative incomes it is also equal to 2A and to 1 2B due to the fact that A B 0 5 Suppose all people have non negative income or wealth as the case may be In that case the Gini coefficient can theoretically range from 0 complete equality to 1 complete inequality and is sometimes expressed as a percentage ranging between 0 and 100 If negative values are possible such as the wealth of people with debts then the Gini coefficient could theoretically be more than 1 Usually the mean or total is assumed to be positive which rules out a Gini coefficient of less than zero 19 An alternative approach is to define the Gini coefficient as half of the relative mean absolute difference which is mathematically equivalent to the definition based on the Lorenz curve 20 The mean absolute difference is the average absolute difference of all pairs of items of the population and the relative mean absolute difference is the mean absolute difference divided by the average x displaystyle bar x to normalize for scale If xi is the wealth or income of person i and there are n persons then the Gini coefficient G is given by G i 1 n j 1 n x i x j 2 i 1 n j 1 n x j i 1 n j 1 n x i x j 2 n j 1 n x j i 1 n j 1 n x i x j 2 n 2 x displaystyle G frac displaystyle sum i 1 n sum j 1 n left x i x j right displaystyle 2 sum i 1 n sum j 1 n x j frac displaystyle sum i 1 n sum j 1 n left x i x j right displaystyle 2n sum j 1 n x j frac displaystyle sum i 1 n sum j 1 n left x i x j right displaystyle 2n 2 bar x When the income or wealth distribution is given as a continuous probability density function p x the Gini coefficient is again half of the relative mean absolute difference G 1 2 m p x p y x y d x d y displaystyle G frac 1 2 mu int infty infty int infty infty p x p y x y dx dy where m x p x d x displaystyle textstyle mu int infty infty xp x dx is the mean of the distribution and the lower limits of integration may be replaced by zero when all incomes are positive Calculation EditThis section s tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia See Wikipedia s guide to writing better articles for suggestions February 2019 Learn how and when to remove this template message Richest u of population red equally share f of all income or wealth others green equally share remainder G f u A smooth distribution blue with the same u and f always has G gt f u While the income distribution of any particular country will not always follow theoretical models in reality these models give a qualitative understanding of the income distribution in a nation given the Gini coefficient Example two levels of income Edit The extreme cases are represented by the most equal society in which every person receives the same income G 0 and the most unequal society composed of N individuals where a single person receives 100 of the total income and the remaining N 1 people receive none G 1 1 N A simplified case distinguishes just two levels of income low and high If the high income group is a proportion u of the population and earns a proportion f of all income then the Gini coefficient is f u A more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than f u An example case in which the richest 20 of the population have 80 of all income see Pareto principle would lead to an income Gini coefficient of at least 60 Another example case 21 in which 1 of all the world s population owns 50 of all wealth would result in a wealth Gini coefficient of at least 49 Alternative expressions Edit In some cases this equation can be applied to calculate the Gini coefficient without direct reference to the Lorenz curve For example taking y to indicate the income or wealth of a person or household For a population uniform on the values yi i 1 to n indexed in non decreasing order yi yi 1 G 1 n n 1 2 i 1 n n 1 i y i i 1 n y i displaystyle G frac 1 n left n 1 2 left frac sum i 1 n n 1 i y i sum i 1 n y i right right dd This may be simplified to G 2 i 1 n i y i n i 1 n y i n 1 n displaystyle G frac 2 sum i 1 n iy i n sum i 1 n y i frac n 1 n dd This formula actually applies to any real population since each person can be assigned his or her own yi 22 Since the Gini coefficient is half the relative mean absolute difference it can also be calculated using formulas for the relative mean absolute difference For a random sample S consisting of values yi i 1 to n that are indexed in non decreasing order yi yi 1 the statistic G S 1 n 1 n 1 2 i 1 n n 1 i y i i 1 n y i displaystyle G S frac 1 n 1 left n 1 2 left frac sum i 1 n n 1 i y i sum i 1 n y i right right is a consistent estimator of the population Gini coefficient but is not in general unbiased Like G G S has a simpler form G S 1 2 n 1 n i 1 n i y i i 1 n y i displaystyle G S 1 frac 2 n 1 left n frac sum i 1 n iy i sum i 1 n y i right There does not exist a sample statistic that is in general an unbiased estimator of the population Gini coefficient like the relative mean absolute difference Discrete probability distribution Edit For a discrete probability distribution with probability mass function f y i displaystyle f y i i 1 n displaystyle i 1 ldots n where f y i displaystyle f y i is the fraction of the population with income or wealth y i gt 0 displaystyle y i gt 0 the Gini coefficient is G 1 2 m i 1 n j 1 n f y i f y j y i y j displaystyle G frac 1 2 mu sum limits i 1 n sum limits j 1 n f y i f y j y i y j where m i 1 n y i f y i displaystyle mu sum limits i 1 n y i f y i If the points with non zero probabilities are indexed in increasing order y i lt y i 1 displaystyle y i lt y i 1 then G 1 i 1 n f y i S i 1 S i S n displaystyle G 1 frac sum i 1 n f y i S i 1 S i S n where S i j 1 i f y j y j displaystyle S i sum j 1 i f y j y j and S 0 0 displaystyle S 0 0 These formulas are also applicable in the limit as n displaystyle n rightarrow infty Continuous probability distribution Edit When the population is large the income distribution may be represented by a continuous probability density function f x where f x dx is the fraction of the population with wealth or income in the interval dx about x If F x is the cumulative distribution function for f x F x 0 x f x d x displaystyle F x int 0 x f x dx and L x is the Lorenz function L x 0 x x f x d x 0 x f x d x displaystyle L x frac int 0 x x f x dx int 0 infty x f x dx then the Lorenz curve L F may then be represented as a function parametric in L x and F x and the value of B can be found by integration B 0 1 L F d F displaystyle B int 0 1 L F dF The Gini coefficient can also be calculated directly from the cumulative distribution function of the distribution F y Defining m as the mean of the distribution and specifying that F y is zero for all negative values the Gini coefficient is given by G 1 1 m 0 1 F y 2 d y 1 m 0 F y 1 F y d y displaystyle G 1 frac 1 mu int 0 infty 1 F y 2 dy frac 1 mu int 0 infty F y 1 F y dy The latter result comes from integration by parts Note that this formula can be applied when there are negative values if the integration is taken from minus infinity to plus infinity The Gini coefficient may be expressed in terms of the quantile function Q F inverse of the cumulative distribution function Q F x x G 1 2 m 0 1 0 1 Q F 1 Q F 2 d F 1 d F 2 displaystyle G frac 1 2 mu int 0 1 int 0 1 Q F 1 Q F 2 dF 1 dF 2 Since the Gini coefficient is independent of scale if the distribution function can be expressed in the form f x f a b c where f is a scale factor and a b c are dimensionless parameters then the Gini coefficient will be a function only of a b c 23 For example for the exponential distribution which is a function of only x and a scale parameter the Gini coefficient is a constant equal to 1 2 For some functional forms the Gini index can be calculated explicitly For example if y follows a log normal distribution with the standard deviation of logs equal to s displaystyle sigma then G erf s 2 displaystyle G operatorname erf left frac sigma 2 right where erf displaystyle operatorname erf is the error function since G 2 F s 2 1 displaystyle G 2 Phi left frac sigma sqrt 2 right 1 where F displaystyle Phi is the cumulative distribution function of a standard normal distribution 24 In the table below some examples for probability density functions with support on 0 displaystyle 0 infty are shown The Dirac delta distribution represents the case where everyone has the same wealth or income it implies no variations between incomes 25 Income Distribution function PDF x Gini CoefficientDirac delta function d x x 0 x 0 gt 0 displaystyle delta x x 0 x 0 gt 0 0Uniform distribution 26 1 b a a x b 0 o t h e r w i s e displaystyle begin cases frac 1 b a amp a leq x leq b 0 amp mathrm otherwise end cases b a 3 b a displaystyle frac b a 3 b a Exponential distribution 27 l e x l x gt 0 displaystyle lambda e x lambda x gt 0 1 2 displaystyle 1 2 Log normal distribution 24 28 1 x s 2 p e 1 2 ln x m s 2 displaystyle frac 1 x sigma sqrt 2 pi e frac 1 2 left frac ln x mu sigma right 2 erf s 2 2 F s 2 1 displaystyle textrm erf sigma 2 2 Phi left frac sigma sqrt 2 right 1 Pareto distribution 29 a k a x a 1 x k 0 x lt k displaystyle begin cases frac alpha k alpha x alpha 1 amp x geq k 0 amp x lt k end cases 1 0 lt a lt 1 1 2 a 1 a 1 displaystyle begin cases 1 amp 0 lt alpha lt 1 frac 1 2 alpha 1 amp alpha geq 1 end cases Chi distribution 30 f x k x k 1 e x 2 2 2 k 2 1 G k 2 x 0 0 x lt 0 displaystyle f x k begin cases dfrac x k 1 e x 2 2 2 k 2 1 Gamma left frac k 2 right amp x geq 0 0 amp x lt 0 end cases 1 k I 1 k 1 2 displaystyle 1 k left I 1 k tfrac 1 2 right Chi squared distribution 31 2 k 2 e x 2 x k 2 1 G k 2 displaystyle frac 2 k 2 e x 2 x k 2 1 Gamma k 2 2 G 1 k 2 k G k 2 p displaystyle frac 2 Gamma left frac 1 k 2 right k Gamma k 2 sqrt pi Gamma distribution 23 e x 8 x k 1 8 k G k displaystyle frac e x theta x k 1 theta k Gamma k G 2 k 1 2 k G k p displaystyle frac Gamma left frac 2k 1 2 right k Gamma k sqrt pi Weibull distribution 32 k l x l k 1 e x l k displaystyle frac k lambda left frac x lambda right k 1 e x lambda k 1 2 1 k displaystyle 1 2 1 k Beta distribution 33 x a 1 1 x b 1 B a b displaystyle frac x alpha 1 1 x beta 1 B alpha beta 2 a B a b a b B a a B b b displaystyle left frac 2 alpha right frac B alpha beta alpha beta B alpha alpha B beta beta Log logistic distribution 34 b a x a b 1 1 x a b 2 displaystyle frac beta alpha x alpha beta 1 left 1 x alpha beta right 2 1 b displaystyle 1 beta G displaystyle Gamma is the Gamma function B displaystyle B is the Beta function I k displaystyle I k is the Regularized incomplete beta functionOther approaches Edit Sometimes the entire Lorenz curve is not known and only values at certain intervals are given In that case the Gini coefficient can be approximated using various techniques for interpolating the missing values of the Lorenz curve If Xk Yk are the known points on the Lorenz curve with the Xk indexed in increasing order Xk 1 lt Xk so that Xk is the cumulated proportion of the population variable for k 0 n with X0 0 Xn 1 Yk is the cumulated proportion of the income variable for k 0 n with Y0 0 Yn 1 Yk should be indexed in non decreasing order Yk gt Yk 1 If the Lorenz curve is approximated on each interval as a line between consecutive points then the area B can be approximated with trapezoids and G 1 1 k 1 n X k X k 1 Y k Y k 1 displaystyle G 1 1 sum k 1 n X k X k 1 Y k Y k 1 is the resulting approximation for G More accurate results can be obtained using other methods to approximate the area B such as approximating the Lorenz curve with a quadratic function across pairs of intervals or building an appropriately smooth approximation to the underlying distribution function that matches the known data If the population mean and boundary values for each interval are also known these can also often be used to improve the accuracy of the approximation The Gini coefficient calculated from a sample is a statistic and its standard error or confidence intervals for the population Gini coefficient should be reported These can be calculated using bootstrap techniques mathematically complicated and computationally demanding even in an era of fast computers 35 Economist Tomson Ogwang made the process more efficient by setting up a trick regression model in which respective income variables in the sample are ranked with the lowest income being allocated rank 1 The model then expresses the rank dependent variable as the sum of a constant A and a normal error term whose variance is inversely proportional to yk k A N 0 s 2 y k displaystyle k A N 0 s 2 y k Thus G can be expressed as a function of the weighted least squares estimate of the constant A and that this can be used to speed up the calculation of the jackknife estimate for the standard error Economist David Giles argued that the standard error of the estimate of A can be used to derive the estimate of G directly without using a jackknife This method only requires using ordinary least squares regression after ordering the sample data The results compare favorably with the estimates from the jackknife with agreement improving with increasing sample size 36 However it has been argued that this depends on the model s assumptions about the error distributions and the independence of error terms These assumptions are often not valid for real data sets There is still ongoing debate surrounding this topic Guillermina Jasso 37 and Angus Deaton 38 independently proposed the following formula for the Gini coefficient G N 1 N 1 2 N N 1 m i 1 n P i X i displaystyle G frac N 1 N 1 frac 2 N N 1 mu sum i 1 n P i X i where m displaystyle mu is mean income of the population Pi is the income rank P of person i with income X such that the richest person receives a rank of 1 and the poorest a rank of N This effectively gives higher weight to poorer people in the income distribution which allows the Gini to meet the Transfer Principle Note that the Jasso Deaton formula rescales the coefficient so that its value is one if all the X i displaystyle X i are zero except one Note however Allison s reply on the need to divide by N instead 39 FAO explains another version of the formula 40 Generalized inequality indices EditSee also Generalized entropy index The Gini coefficient and other standard inequality indices reduce to a common form Perfect equality the absence of inequality exists when and only when the inequality ratio r j x j x displaystyle r j x j overline x equals 1 for all j units in some population for example there is perfect income equality when everyone s income x j displaystyle x j equals the mean income x displaystyle overline x so that r j 1 displaystyle r j 1 for everyone Measures of inequality then are measures of the average deviations of the r j 1 displaystyle r j 1 from 1 the greater the average deviation the greater the inequality Based on these observations the inequality indices have this common form 41 Inequality j p j f r j displaystyle text Inequality sum j p j f r j where pj weights the units by their population share and f rj is a function of the deviation of each unit s rj from 1 the point of equality The insight of this generalised inequality index is that inequality indices differ because they employ different functions of the distance of the inequality ratios the rj from 1 Of income distributions EditSee also List of countries by income equality Derivation of the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient for global income in 2011 Gini coefficients of income are calculated on a market income and a disposable income basis The Gini coefficient on market income sometimes referred to as a pre tax Gini coefficient is calculated on income before taxes and transfers It measures inequality in income without considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country The Gini coefficient on disposable income sometimes referred to as the after tax Gini coefficient is calculated on income after taxes and transfers It measures inequality in income after considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country 7 42 43 For OECD countries over the 2008 2009 period the Gini coefficient pre taxes and transfers for a total population ranged between 0 34 and 0 53 with South Korea the lowest and Italy the highest The Gini coefficient after taxes and transfers for a total population ranged between 0 25 and 0 48 with Denmark the lowest and Mexico the highest For the United States the country with the largest population among OECD countries the pre tax Gini index was 0 49 and the after tax Gini index was 0 38 in 2008 2009 The OECD average for total populations in OECD countries was 0 46 for the pre tax income Gini index and 0 31 for the after tax income Gini index 7 44 Taxes and social spending that were in place in 2008 2009 period in OECD countries significantly lowered effective income inequality and in general European countries especially Nordic and Continental welfare states achieve lower levels of income inequality than other countries 45 Using the Gini can help quantify differences in welfare and compensation policies and philosophies However it should be borne in mind that the Gini coefficient can be misleading when used to make political comparisons between large and small countries or those with different immigration policies see limitations section The Gini coefficient for the entire world has been estimated by various parties to be between 0 61 and 0 68 11 12 46 The graph shows the values expressed as a percentage in their historical development for a number of countries Regional income Gini indices Edit According to UNICEF Latin America and the Caribbean region had the highest net income Gini index in the world at 48 3 on an unweighted average basis in 2008 The remaining regional averages were sub Saharan Africa 44 2 Asia 40 4 Middle East and North Africa 39 2 Eastern Europe and Central Asia 35 4 and High income Countries 30 9 Using the same method the United States is claimed to have a Gini index of 36 while South Africa had the highest income Gini index score of 67 8 47 World income Gini index since 1800s Edit Taking income distribution of all human beings worldwide income inequality has been constantly increasing since the early 19th century There was a steady increase in the global income inequality Gini score from 1820 to 2002 with a significant increase between 1980 and 2002 This trend appears to have peaked and begun a reversal with rapid economic growth in emerging economies particularly in the large populations of BRIC countries 48 The table below presents the estimated world income Gini coefficients over the last 200 years as calculated by Milanovic 49 Income Gini coefficient World 1820 2005 Year World Gini coefficients 11 47 50 1820 0 431850 0 531870 0 561913 0 611929 0 621950 0 641960 0 641980 0 662002 0 712005 0 68More detailed data from similar sources plots a continuous decline since 1988 This is attributed to globalization increasing incomes for billions of poor people mostly in countries like China and India Developing countries like Brazil have also improved basic services like health care education and sanitation others like Chile and Mexico have enacted more progressive tax policies 51 Income Gini coefficient World 1988 2013 Year World Gini coefficients 52 1988 0 801993 0 761998 0 742003 0 722008 0 702013 0 65Of social development EditThe Gini coefficient is widely used in fields as diverse as sociology economics health science ecology engineering and agriculture 53 For example in social sciences and economics in addition to income Gini coefficients scholars have published education Gini coefficients and opportunity Gini coefficients Education Edit Education Gini index estimates the inequality in education for a given population 54 It is used to discern trends in social development through educational attainment over time A study across 85 countries by three World Bank economists Vinod Thomas Yan Wang and Xibo Fan estimated Mali had the highest education Gini index of 0 92 in 1990 implying very high inequality in educational attainment across the population while the United States had the lowest education inequality Gini index of 0 14 Between 1960 and 1990 China India and South Korea had the fastest drop in education inequality Gini Index They also claim education Gini index for the United States slightly increased over the 1980 1990 period Opportunity Edit Similar in concept to the Gini income coefficient the Gini opportunity coefficient measures inequality in opportunities 55 56 57 The concept builds on Amartya Sen s suggestion 58 that inequality coefficients of social development should be premised on the process of enlarging people s choices and enhancing their capabilities rather than on the process of reducing income inequality Kovacevic in a review of the Gini opportunity coefficient explained that the coefficient estimates how well a society enables its citizens to achieve success in life where the success is based on a person s choices efforts and talents not his background defined by a set of predetermined circumstances at birth such as gender race place of birth parent s income and circumstances beyond the control of that individual In 2003 Roemer 55 59 reported Italy and Spain exhibited the largest opportunity inequality Gini index amongst advanced economies Income mobility Edit In 1978 Anthony Shorrocks introduced a measure based on income Gini coefficients to estimate income mobility 60 This measure generalized by Maasoumi and Zandvakili 61 is now generally referred to as Shorrocks index sometimes as Shorrocks mobility index or Shorrocks rigidity index It attempts to estimate whether the income inequality Gini coefficient is permanent or temporary and to what extent a country or region enables economic mobility to its people so that they can move from one e g bottom 20 income quantile to another e g middle 20 over time In other words the Shorrocks index compares inequality of short term earnings such as the annual income of households to inequality of long term earnings such as 5 year or 10 year total income for the same households Shorrocks index is calculated in several different ways a common approach being from the ratio of income Gini coefficients between short term and long term for the same region or country 62 A 2010 study using social security income data for the United States since 1937 and Gini based Shorrock s indices concludes that income mobility in the United States has had a complicated history primarily due to the mass influx of women into the American labor force after World War II Income inequality and income mobility trends have been different for men and women workers between 1937 and the 2000s When men and women are considered together the Gini coefficient based Shorrocks index trends imply long term income inequality has been substantially reduced among all workers in recent decades for the United States 62 Other scholars using just 1990s data or other short periods have come to different conclusions 63 For example Sastre and Ayala conclude from their study of income Gini coefficient data between 1993 and 1998 for six developed economies that France had the least income mobility Italy the highest and the United States and Germany intermediate levels of income mobility over those five years 64 Features EditThe Gini coefficient has features that make it useful as a measure of dispersion in a population and inequalities in particular 40 Limitations EditThe Gini coefficient is a relative measure The Gini coefficient of a developing country can rise due to increasing inequality of income even when the number of people in absolute poverty decreases 65 This is because the Gini coefficient measures relative not absolute wealth Changing income inequality measured by Gini coefficients can be due to structural changes in a society such as growing population increased birth rates aging populations increased divorce rates extended family households splitting into nuclear families emigration immigration and income mobility 66 Gini coefficients are simple and this simplicity can lead to oversights and can confuse the comparison of different populations for example while both Bangladesh per capita income of 1 693 and the Netherlands per capita income of 42 183 had an income Gini coefficient of 0 31 in 2010 67 the quality of life economic opportunity and absolute income in these countries are very different i e countries may have identical Gini coefficients but differ greatly in wealth Basic necessities may be available to all in a developed economy while in an undeveloped economy with the same Gini coefficient basic necessities may be unavailable to most or unequally available due to lower absolute wealth Table A Different income distributions with the same Gini index 40 Household group Country A annual income Country B annual income 1 20 000 9 0002 30 000 40 0003 40 000 48 0004 50 000 48 0005 60 000 55 000Total income 200 000 200 000Country s Gini 0 2 0 2Different income distributions with the same Gini coefficientEven when the total income of a population is the same in certain situations two countries with different income distributions can have the same Gini index e g cases when income Lorenz Curves cross 40 Table A illustrates one such situation Both countries have a Gini coefficient of 0 2 but the average income distributions for household groups are different As another example in a population where the lowest 50 of individuals have no income and the other 50 have equal income the Gini coefficient is 0 5 whereas for another population where the lowest 75 of people have 25 of income and the top 25 have 75 of the income the Gini index is also 0 5 Economies with similar incomes and Gini coefficients can have very different income distributions Bellu and Liberati claim that ranking income inequality between two populations is not always possible based on their Gini indices 68 Similarly computational social scientist Fabian Stephany illustrates that income inequality within the population e g in specific socio economic groups of same age and education also remains undetected by conventional Gini indices 69 Extreme wealth inequality yet low income Gini coefficientA Gini index does not contain information about absolute national or personal incomes Populations can simultaneously have very low income Gini indices and very high wealth Gini indexes By measuring inequality in income the Gini ignores the differential efficiency of the use of household income By ignoring wealth except as it contributes to income the Gini can create the appearance of inequality when the people compared are at different stages in their life Wealthy countries such as Sweden can show a low Gini coefficient for the disposable income of 0 31 thereby appearing equal yet have a very high Gini coefficient for wealth of 0 79 to 0 86 suggesting an extremely unequal wealth distribution in its society 70 71 These factors are not assessed in income based Gini Table B Same income distributions but different Gini Index Household number Country Annual Income Household combined number Country A combined Annual Income 1 20 000 1 amp 2 50 0002 30 0003 40 000 3 amp 4 90 0004 50 0005 60 000 5 amp 6 130 0006 70 0007 80 000 7 amp 8 170 0008 90 0009 120 000 9 amp 10 270 00010 150 000Total Income 710 000 710 000Country s Gini 0 303 0 293Small sample bias sparsely populated regions more likely to have low Gini coefficientGini index has a downward bias for small populations 72 Counties or states or countries with small populations and less diverse economies will tend to report small Gini coefficients For economically diverse large population groups a much higher coefficient is expected than for each of its regions For example taking the world economy as a whole and income distribution for all human beings different scholars estimate the global Gini index to range between 0 61 and 0 68 11 12 As with other inequality coefficients the Gini coefficient is influenced by the granularity of the measurements For example five 20 quantiles low granularity will usually yield a lower Gini coefficient than twenty 5 quantiles high granularity for the same distribution Philippe Monfort has shown that using inconsistent or unspecified granularity limits the usefulness of Gini coefficient measurements 73 The Gini coefficient measure gives different results when applied to individuals instead of households for the same economy and same income distributions If household data is used the measured value of income Gini depends on how the household is defined The comparison is not meaningful when different populations are not measured with consistent definitions Deininger and Squire 1996 show that the income Gini coefficient based on individual income rather than household income is different For example for the United States they found that the individual income based Gini index was 0 35 while for France 0 43 According to their individual focused method in the 108 countries they studied South Africa had the world s highest Gini coefficient at 0 62 Malaysia had Asia s highest Gini coefficient at 0 5 Brazil the highest at 0 57 in Latin America and the Caribbean region and Turkey the highest at 0 5 in OECD countries 74 Table C Household money income distributions and Gini Index US 75 Income bracket in 2010 adjusted dollars of Population 1979 of Population 2010Under 15 000 14 6 13 7 15 000 24 999 11 9 12 0 25 000 34 999 12 1 10 9 35 000 49 999 15 4 13 9 50 000 74 999 22 1 17 7 75 000 99 999 12 4 11 4 100 000 149 999 8 3 12 1 150 000 199 999 2 0 4 5 200 000 and over 1 2 3 9 Total Households 80 776 000 118 682 000United States Gini on pre tax basis 0 404 0 469Gini coefficient is unable to discern the effects of structural changes in populations 66 Expanding on the importance of life span measures the Gini coefficient as a point estimate of equality at a certain time ignores life span changes in income Typically increases in the proportion of young or old members of a society will drive apparent changes in equality simply because people generally have lower incomes and wealth when they are young than when they are old Because of this factors such as age distribution within a population and mobility within income classes can create the appearance of inequality when none exist taking into account demographic effects Thus a given economy may have a higher Gini coefficient at any timepoint compared to another while the Gini coefficient calculated over individuals lifetime income is lower than the apparently more equal at a given point in time economy s clarification needed 15 Essentially what matters is not just inequality in any particular year but the distribution composition over time Billionaire Thomas Kwok claimed the income Gini coefficient for Hong Kong has been high 0 434 in 2010 67 in part because of structural changes in its population Over recent decades Hong Kong has witnessed increasing numbers of small households elderly households and elderly living alone The combined income is now split into more households Many older people live separate from their children in Hong Kong These social changes have caused substantial changes in household income distribution The income Gini coefficient claims Kwok does not discern these structural changes in its society 66 Household money income distribution for the United States summarized in Table C of this section confirms that this issue is not limited to just Hong Kong According to the US Census Bureau between 1979 and 2010 the population of the United States experienced structural changes in overall households the income for all income brackets increased in inflation adjusted terms household income distributions shifted into higher income brackets over time while the income Gini coefficient increased 75 76 Another limitation of the Gini coefficient is that it is not a proper measure of egalitarianism as it only measures income dispersion For example suppose two equally egalitarian countries pursue different immigration policies In that case the country accepting a higher proportion of low income or impoverished migrants will report a higher Gini coefficient and therefore may exhibit more income inequality Inability to value benefits and income from informal economy affects Gini coefficient accuracySome countries distribute benefits that are difficult to value Countries that provide subsidized housing medical care education or other such services are difficult to value objectively as it depends on the quality and extent of the benefit In absence of a free market valuing these income transfers as household income is subjective The theoretical model of the Gini coefficient is limited to accepting correct or incorrect subjective assumptions In subsistence driven and informal economies people may have significant income in other forms than money for example through subsistence farming or bartering These income tend to accrue to the segment of population below the poverty line or very poor in emerging and transitional economy countries such as those in sub Saharan Africa Latin America Asia and Eastern Europe Informal economy accounts for over half of global employment and as much as 90 per cent of employment in some of the poorer sub Saharan countries with high official Gini inequality coefficients Schneider et al in their 2010 study of 162 countries 77 report about 31 2 or about 20 trillion of world s GDP is informal In developing countries the informal economy predominates for all income brackets except the richer urban upper income bracket populations Even in developed economies 8 United States to 27 Italy of each nation s GDP is informal The resulting informal income predominates as a livelihood activity for those in the lowest income brackets 78 The value and distribution of the incomes from informal or underground economy is difficult to quantify making true income Gini coefficients estimates difficult 79 80 Different assumptions and quantifications of these incomes will yield different Gini coefficients 81 82 83 Gini has some mathematical limitations as well It is not additive and different sets of people cannot be averaged to obtain the Gini coefficient of all the people in the sets Alternatives EditGiven the limitations of the Gini coefficient other statistical methods are used in combination or as an alternative measure of population dispersity For example entropy measures are frequently used e g the Atkinson index or the Theil Index and Mean log deviation as special cases of the generalized entropy index These measures attempt to compare the distribution of resources by intelligent agents in the market with a maximum entropy random distribution which would occur if these agents acted like non interacting particles in a closed system following the laws of statistical physics Relation to other statistical measures EditThere is a summary measure of the diagnostic ability of a binary classifier system that is also called the Gini coefficient which is defined as twice the area between the receiver operating characteristic ROC curve and its diagonal It is related to the AUC Area Under the ROC Curve measure of performance given by A U C G 1 2 displaystyle AUC G 1 2 84 and to Mann Whitney U Although both Gini coefficients are defined as areas between certain curves and share certain properties there is no simple direct relationship between the Gini coefficient of statistical dispersion and the Gini coefficient of a classifier The Gini index is also related to the Pietra index both of which measure statistical heterogeneity and are derived from the Lorenz curve and the diagonal line 85 86 23 In certain fields such as ecology inverse Simpson s index 1 l displaystyle 1 lambda is used to quantify diversity and this should not be confused with the Simpson index l displaystyle lambda These indicators are related to Gini The inverse Simpson index increases with diversity unlike the Simpson index and Gini coefficient which decrease with diversity The Simpson index is in the range 0 1 where 0 means maximum and 1 means minimum diversity or heterogeneity Since diversity indices typically increase with increasing heterogeneity the Simpson index is often transformed into inverse Simpson or using the complement 1 l displaystyle 1 lambda known as the Gini Simpson Index 87 Gini coefficients for pre modern societies EditIn recent decades researchers have attempted to estimate Gini coefficients for pre 20th century societies In the absence of household income surveys and income taxes scholars have relied on proxy variables These include wealth taxes in medieval European city states patterns of landownership in Roman Egypt variation of the size of houses in societies from ancient Greece to Aztec Mexico and inheritance and dowries in Babylonian society Other data does not directly document variations in wealth or income but are known to reflect inequality such as the ratio of rents to wages or of labor to capital 88 Other uses EditAlthough the Gini coefficient is most popular in economics it can in theory be applied in any field of science that studies a distribution For example in ecology the Gini coefficient has been used as a measure of biodiversity where the cumulative proportion of species is plotted against the cumulative proportion of individuals 89 In health it has been used as a measure of the inequality of health related quality of life in a population 90 In education it has been used as a measure of the inequality of universities 91 In chemistry it has been used to express the selectivity of protein kinase inhibitors against a panel of kinases 92 In engineering it has been used to evaluate the fairness achieved by Internet routers in scheduling packet transmissions from different flows of traffic 93 The Gini coefficient is sometimes used for the measurement of the discriminatory power of rating systems in credit risk management 94 A 2005 study accessed US census data to measure home computer ownership and used the Gini coefficient to measure inequalities amongst whites and African Americans Results indicated that although decreasing overall home computer ownership inequality was substantially smaller among white households 95 A 2016 peer reviewed study titled Employing the Gini coefficient to measure participation inequality in treatment focused Digital Health Social Networks 96 illustrated that the Gini coefficient was helpful and accurate in measuring shifts in inequality however as a standalone metric it failed to incorporate overall network size Discriminatory power refers to a credit risk model s ability to differentiate between defaulting and non defaulting clients The formula G 1 displaystyle G 1 in the calculation section above may be used for the final model and at the individual model factor level to quantify the discriminatory power of individual factors It is related to the accuracy ratio in population assessment models The Gini coefficient has also been applied to analyze inequality in dating apps 97 98 Kaminskiy and Krivtsov 99 extended the concept of the Gini coefficient from economics to reliability theory and proposed a Gini type coefficient that helps to assess the degree of aging of non repairable systems or aging and rejuvenation of repairable systems The coefficient is defined between 1 and 1 and can be used in both empirical and parametric life distributions It takes negative values for the class of decreasing failure rate distributions and point processes with decreasing failure intensity rate and is positive for the increasing failure rate distributions and point processes with increasing failure intensity rate The value of zero corresponds to the exponential life distribution or the Homogeneous Poisson Process See also EditDiversity index Economic inequality Great Gatsby curve Herfindahl Hirschman Index Hoover index a k a Robin Hood index Human Poverty Index Income inequality metrics Kuznets curve List of countries by income equality List of countries by inequality adjusted Human Development Index List of countries by wealth inequality List of U S states by Gini coefficient Lorenz curve Matthew effect Pareto distribution ROC analysis Suits index The Elephant Curve Utopia Welfare Welfare economicsReferences Edit Gini index World Bank estimate data worldbank org Retrieved 23 April 2022 Global wealth databook 2019 PDF Credit Suisse Archived PDF from the original on 23 October 2019 Credit Suisse Research Institute Global wealth report 2021 PDF Credit Suisse June 2021 p 17 Retrieved 17 December 2022 Current Population Survey CPS Definitions and Explanations US Census Bureau Note Gini coefficient could be near one only in a large population where a few persons has all the income In the special case of just two people where one has no income and the other has all the income the Gini coefficient is 0 5 For five people where four have no income and the fifth has all the income the Gini coefficient is 0 8 See FAO United Nations Inequality Analysis The Gini Index Module Archived 13 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine PDF format fao org Gini Corrado 1936 On the Measure of Concentration with Special Reference to Income and Statistics Colorado College Publication General Series No 208 73 79 a b c Income distribution Inequality Income distribution Inequality Country tables OECD 2012 Archived from the original on 9 November 2014 Q4 snapshots KPMG South Africa 2013Q4 pdf South Africa Snapshot Q4 2013 PDF KPMG 2013 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a Check url value help dead link Gini Coefficient United Nations Development Program 2012 Archived from the original on 12 July 2014 Schussler Mike 16 July 2014 The Gini is still in the bottle Money Web Retrieved 24 November 2014 a b c d Hillebrand Evan June 2009 Poverty Growth and Inequality over the Next 50 Years PDF FAO United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Archived from the original PDF on 20 October 2017 a b c Nations United 2011 The Real Wealth of Nations Pathways to Human Development 2010 PDF United Nations Development Program pp 72 74 ISBN 978 0 230 28445 6 Archived from the original PDF on 29 April 2011 Yitzhaki Shlomo 1998 More than a Dozen Alternative Ways of Spelling Gini PDF Economic Inequality 8 13 30 Archived PDF from the original on 3 August 2012 Sung Myung Jae August 2010 Population Aging Mobility of Quarterly Incomes and Annual Income Inequality Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Findings CiteSeerX 10 1 1 365 4156 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help a b Blomquist N 1981 A comparison of distributions of annual and lifetime income Sweden around 1970 Review of Income and Wealth 27 3 243 264 doi 10 1111 j 1475 4991 1981 tb00227 x S2CID 154519005 Gini C 1909 Concentration and dependency ratios in Italian English translation in Rivista di Politica Economica 87 1997 769 789 Gini C 1912 Variabilita e Mutuabilita Contributo allo Studio delle Distribuzioni e delle Relazioni Statistiche Bologna C Cuppini Who What Why What is the Gini coefficient BBC News 12 March 2015 Retrieved 30 March 2022 cumulative distribution function How to compute the Wealth Lorenz curve with negative values Cross Validated Retrieved 30 November 2022 Sen Amartya 1977 On Economic Inequality 2nd ed Oxford Oxford University Press Treanor Jill 13 October 2015 Half of world s wealth now in hands of 1 of population The Guardian Gini Coefficient Wolfram Mathworld a b c McDonald James B Jensen Bartell C December 1979 An Analysis of Some Properties of Alternative Measures of Income Inequality Based on the Gamma Distribution Function Journal of the American Statistical Association 74 368 856 860 doi 10 1080 01621459 1979 10481042 a b Crow E L amp Shimizu K Eds 1988 Lognormal distributions Theory and applications Vol 88 New York M Dekker page 11 Dirac Delta Function an overview ScienceDirect Topics www sciencedirect com Retrieved 30 November 2022 Weisstein Eric W Uniform Distribution mathworld wolfram com Retrieved 30 November 2022 Exponential Distribution Definition Memoryless Random Variable www probabilitycourse com Retrieved 30 November 2022 For the log normal with s displaystyle sigma 0 erf 0 displaystyle textrm erf 0 0 2 F 0 1 2 0 5 1 displaystyle 2 Phi 0 1 2 0 5 1 0 Wolfram MathWorld The Web s Most Extensive Mathematics Resource mathworld wolfram com Retrieved 30 November 2022 Wolfram MathWorld The Web s Most Extensive Mathematics Resource mathworld wolfram com Retrieved 30 November 2022 Turney Shaun 20 May 2022 Chi Square X Distributions Definition amp Examples Scribbr Retrieved 30 November 2022 Weibull Distribution Characteristics of the Weibull Distribution www weibull com Retrieved 30 November 2022 Weisstein Eric W Beta Distribution mathworld wolfram com Retrieved 30 November 2022 The Log Logistic Distribution www randomservices org Retrieved 30 November 2022 Abdon Mitch 23 May 2011 Bootstrapping Gini Statadaily Unsolicited advice for the interested Retrieved 12 November 2022 Giles 2004 Jasso Guillermina 1979 On Gini s Mean Difference and Gini s Index of Concentration American Sociological Review 44 5 867 870 doi 10 2307 2094535 JSTOR 2094535 Deaton 1997 p 139 Allison Paul D 1979 Reply to Jasso American Sociological Review 44 5 870 872 doi 10 2307 2094536 JSTOR 2094536 a b c d Bellu Lorenzo Giovanni Liberati Paolo 2006 Inequality Analysis The Gini Index PDF Food and Agriculture Organization United Nations Archived from the original PDF on 13 July 2017 Retrieved 31 July 2012 Firebaugh Glenn 1999 Empirics of World Income Inequality American Journal of Sociology 104 6 1597 1630 doi 10 1086 210218 S2CID 154973184 See also 2003 Inequality What it is and how it is measured The New Geography of Global Income Inequality Cambridge MA Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 01067 3 Kakwani N C April 1977 Applications of Lorenz Curves in Economic Analysis Econometrica 45 3 719 728 doi 10 2307 1911684 JSTOR 1911684 Chu Ke young Davoodi Hamid Gupta Sanjeev March 2000 Income Distribution and Tax and Government Social Spending Policies in Developing Countries PDF International Monetary Fund Archived PDF from the original on 30 August 2000 Monitoring quality of life in Europe Gini index Eurofound 26 August 2009 Archived from the original on 1 December 2008 Wang Chen Caminada Koen Goudswaard Kees 2012 The redistributive effect of social transfer programmes and taxes A decomposition across countries International Social Security Review 65 3 27 48 doi 10 1111 j 1468 246X 2012 01435 x hdl 1887 3207160 S2CID 154029963 Sutcliffe Bob April 2007 Postscript to the article World inequality and globalization Oxford Review of Economic Policy Spring 2004 PDF Archived PDF from the original on 21 June 2007 Retrieved 13 December 2007 a b Ortiz Isabel Cummins Matthew April 2011 Global Inequality Beyond the Bottom Billion PDF UNICEF p 26 Archived from the original PDF on 12 August 2012 Retrieved 30 July 2012 Milanovic Branko September 2011 More or Less Finance amp Development 48 3 Milanovic Branko 2009 Global Inequality and the Global Inequality Extraction Ratio PDF World Bank Archived PDF from the original on 11 November 2013 Berry Albert Serieux John September 2006 Riding the Elephants The Evolution of World Economic Growth and Income Distribution at the End of the Twentieth Century 1980 2000 PDF United Nations DESA Working Paper No 27 Archived PDF from the original on 17 February 2009 Gharib Malaka 25 January 2017 What The Stat About The 8 Richest Men Doesn t Tell Us About Inequality NPR World Bank Poverty and Prosperity 2016 Taking on Inequality PDF Archived PDF from the original on 15 November 2016 Figure O 10 Global Inequality 1988 2013 Sadras V O Bongiovanni R 2004 Use of Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients to assess yield inequality within paddocks Field Crops Research 90 2 3 303 310 doi 10 1016 j fcr 2004 04 003 Thomas Vinod Wang Yan Fan Xibo January 2001 Measuring education inequality Gini coefficients of education PDF Policy Research Working Papers The World Bank CiteSeerX 10 1 1 608 6919 doi 10 1596 1813 9450 2525 hdl 10986 19738 S2CID 6069811 Archived from the original PDF on 5 June 2013 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help a b Roemer John E September 2006 Economic development as opportunity equalization Report Yale University CiteSeerX 10 1 1 403 4725 SSRN 931479 Weymark John 2003 Generalized Gini Indices of Equality of Opportunity Journal of Economic Inequality 1 1 5 24 doi 10 1023 A 1023923807503 S2CID 133596675 Kovacevic Milorad November 2010 Measurement of Inequality in Human Development A Review PDF United Nations Development Program Archived from the original PDF on 23 September 2011 Atkinson Anthony B 1999 1998 contributions of sen to welf economics pdf The contributions of Amartya Sen to Welfare Economics PDF The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 101 2 173 190 doi 10 1111 1467 9442 00151 JSTOR 3440691 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Check url value help dead link Roemer John E et al March 2003 To what extent do fiscal regimes equalize opportunities for income acquisition among citizens Journal of Public Economics 87 3 4 539 565 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 414 6220 doi 10 1016 S0047 2727 01 00145 1 Shorrocks Anthony December 1978 Income inequality and income mobility Journal of Economic Theory 19 2 376 393 doi 10 1016 0022 0531 78 90101 1 Maasoumi Esfandiar Zandvakili Sourushe 1986 A class of generalized measures of mobility with applications Economics Letters 22 1 97 102 doi 10 1016 0165 1765 86 90150 3 a b Kopczuk Wojciech Saez Emmanuel Song Jae 2010 Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States Evidence from Social Security Data Since 1937 PDF The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125 1 91 128 doi 10 1162 qjec 2010 125 1 91 JSTOR 40506278 Archived PDF from the original on 13 May 2013 Chen Wen Hao March 2009 Cross national Differences in Income Mobility Evidence from Canada the United States Great Britain and Germany Review of Income and Wealth 55 1 75 100 doi 10 1111 j 1475 4991 2008 00307 x S2CID 62886186 Sastre Mercedes Ayala Luis 2002 Europe vs The United States Is There a Trade Off Between Mobility and Inequality PDF Institute for Social and Economic Research University of Essex Archived PDF from the original on 12 June 2006 Mellor John W 2 June 1989 Dramatic Poverty Reduction in the Third World Prospects and Needed Action PDF International Food Policy Research Institute 18 20 Archived PDF from the original on 3 August 2012 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help a b c KWOK Kwok Chuen 2010 Income Distribution of Hong Kong and the Gini Coefficient PDF The Government of Hong Kong China Archived from the original PDF on 27 December 2010 a b The Real Wealth of Nations Pathways to Human Development 2010 Human Development Report see Stat Tables United Nations Development Program 2011 pp 152 156 De Maio Fernando G 2007 Income inequality measures Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 61 10 849 852 doi 10 1136 jech 2006 052969 PMC 2652960 PMID 17873219 Stephany Fabian 1 December 2017 Who are Your Joneses Socio Specific Income Inequality and Trust Social Indicators Research 134 3 877 898 doi 10 1007 s11205 016 1460 9 ISSN 1573 0921 PMC 5684274 PMID 29187771 Domeij David Floden Martin 2010 Inequality Trends in Sweden 1978 2004 Review of Economic Dynamics 13 1 179 208 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 629 9417 doi 10 1016 j red 2009 10 005 Domeij David Klein Paul January 2000 Accounting for Swedish wealth inequality PDF Archived from the original PDF on 19 May 2003 Deltas George February 2003 The Small Sample Bias of the Gini Coefficient Results and Implications for Empirical Research The Review of Economics and Statistics 85 1 226 234 doi 10 1162 rest 2003 85 1 226 JSTOR 3211637 S2CID 57572560 Monfort Philippe 2008 Convergence of EU regions Measures and evolution PDF European Union Europa p 6 Archived PDF from the original on 3 August 2012 Deininger Klaus Squire Lyn 1996 A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality PDF World Bank Economic Review 10 3 565 591 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 314 5610 doi 10 1093 wber 10 3 565 Archived PDF from the original on 16 July 2007 a b Income Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States 2010 see Table A 2 PDF Census Bureau Dept of Commerce United States September 2011 Archived PDF from the original on 23 September 2011 Congressional Budget Office Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 October 2011 see pp i x with definitions on ii iii Schneider Friedrich Buehn Andreas Montenegro Claudio E 2010 New Estimates for the Shadow Economies all over the World International Economic Journal 24 4 443 461 doi 10 1080 10168737 2010 525974 hdl 10986 4929 S2CID 56060172 The Informal Economy PDF International Institute for Environment and Development United Kingdom 2011 ISBN 978 1 84369 822 7 Archived PDF from the original on 3 August 2012 Feldstein Martin August 1998 Is income inequality really the problem Overview PDF US Federal Reserve Archived from the original PDF on 3 August 2012 Retrieved 2 August 2012 Taylor John Weerapana Akila 2009 Principles of Microeconomics Global Financial Crisis Edition pp 416 418 ISBN 978 1 4390 7821 1 Rosser J Barkley Jr Rosser Marina V Ahmed Ehsan March 2000 Income Inequality and the Informal Economy in Transition Economies Journal of Comparative Economics 28 1 156 171 doi 10 1006 jcec 2000 1645 S2CID 49552052 Krstic Gorana Sanfey Peter February 2010 Earnings inequality and the informal economy evidence from Serbia PDF European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Archived PDF from the original on 3 August 2012 Schneider Friedrich December 2004 The Size of the Shadow Economies of 145 Countries all over the World First Results over the Period 1999 to 2003 Report hdl 10419 20729 SSRN 636661 Hand David J Till Robert J 2001 A Simple Generalisation of the Area Under the ROC Curve for Multiple Class Classification Problems PDF Machine Learning 45 2 171 186 doi 10 1023 A 1010920819831 S2CID 43144161 Archived PDF from the original on 10 August 2013 Eliazar Iddo I Sokolov Igor M 2010 Measuring statistical heterogeneity The Pietra index Physica A Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications 389 1 117 125 Bibcode 2010PhyA 389 117E doi 10 1016 j physa 2009 08 006 Lee Wen Chung 1999 Probabilistic Analysis of Global Performances of Diagnostic Tests Interpreting the Lorenz Curve Based Summary Measures PDF Statistics in Medicine 18 4 455 471 doi 10 1002 SICI 1097 0258 19990228 18 4 lt 455 AID SIM44 gt 3 0 CO 2 A PMID 10070686 Archived from the original PDF on 3 August 2012 Retrieved 1 August 2012 Peet Robert K 1974 The Measurement of Species Diversity Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 5 285 307 doi 10 1146 annurev es 05 110174 001441 JSTOR 2096890 S2CID 83517584 Walter Scheidel 2017 The Great Leveler Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty First Century Princeton University Press pp 15 16 ISBN 978 0 691 16502 8 Wittebolle Lieven Marzorati Massimo et al 2009 Initial community evenness favours functionality under selective stress Nature 458 7238 623 626 Bibcode 2009Natur 458 623W doi 10 1038 nature07840 PMID 19270679 S2CID 4419280 Asada Yukiko 2005 Assessment of the health of Americans the average health related quality of life and its inequality across individuals and groups Population Health Metrics 3 7 doi 10 1186 1478 7954 3 7 PMC 1192818 PMID 16014174 Halffman Willem Leydesdorff Loet 2010 Is Inequality Among Universities Increasing Gini Coefficients and the Elusive Rise of Elite Universities Minerva 48 1 55 72 arXiv 1001 2921 doi 10 1007 s11024 010 9141 3 PMC 2850525 PMID 20401157 Graczyk Piotr 2007 Gini Coefficient A New Way To Express Selectivity of Kinase Inhibitors against a Family of Kinases Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 50 23 5773 5779 doi 10 1021 jm070562u PMID 17948979 Shi Hongyuan Sethu Harish 2003 Greedy Fair Queueing A Goal Oriented Strategy for Fair Real Time Packet Scheduling Proceedings of the 24th IEEE Real Time Systems Symposium IEEE Computer Society pp 345 356 ISBN 978 0 7695 2044 5 Christodoulakis George A Satchell Stephen eds November 2007 The Analytics of Risk Model Validation Quantitative Finance Academic Press ISBN 978 0 7506 8158 2 Chakraborty J Bosman MM 2005 Measuring the digital divide in the United States race income and personal computer ownership Prof Geogr 57 3 395 410 doi 10 1111 j 0033 0124 2005 00486 x S2CID 154401826 van Mierlo T Hyatt D Ching A 2016 Employing the Gini coefficient to measure participation inequality in treatment focused Digital Health Social Networks Netw Model Anal Health Inform Bioinforma 5 32 32 doi 10 1007 s13721 016 0140 7 PMC 5082574 PMID 27840788 worst online dater 25 March 2015 Tinder Experiments II Guys unless you are really hot you are probably better off not wasting your Medium Retrieved 28 April 2021 Kopf Dan 15 August 2017 These statistics show why it s so hard to be an average man on dating apps Quartz Retrieved 28 April 2021 Kaminskiy M P Krivtsov V V 2011 A Gini Type Index for Aging Rejuvenating Objects Mathematical and Statistical Models and Methods in Reliability Birkhauser Boston Springer pp 133 140 ISBN 978 0 8176 4970 8 Further reading EditAmiel Y Cowell F A 1999 Thinking about Inequality Cambridge ISBN 978 0 521 46696 7 Anand Sudhir 1983 Inequality and Poverty in Malaysia New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 520153 6 Brown Malcolm 1994 Using Gini Style Indices to Evaluate the Spatial Patterns of Health Practitioners Theoretical Considerations and an Application Based on Alberta Data Social Science amp Medicine 38 9 1243 1256 doi 10 1016 0277 9536 94 90189 9 PMID 8016689 Chakravarty S R 1990 Ethical Social Index Numbers New York Springer Verlag ISBN 978 0 387 52274 6 Deaton Angus 1997 Analysis of Household Surveys Baltimore MD Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 585 23787 9 Dixon Philip M Weiner Jacob Mitchell Olds Thomas Woodley Robert 1987 Bootstrapping the Gini coefficient of inequality Ecology 68 5 1548 1551 doi 10 2307 1939238 JSTOR 1939238 S2CID 84940050 Dorfman Robert 1979 A Formula for the Gini Coefficient The Review of Economics and Statistics 61 1 146 149 doi 10 2307 1924845 JSTOR 1924845 Firebaugh Glenn 2003 The New Geography of Global Income Inequality Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 01067 3 Gastwirth Joseph L 1972 The Estimation of the Lorenz Curve and Gini Index The Review of Economics and Statistics 54 3 306 316 doi 10 2307 1937992 JSTOR 1937992 Giles David 2004 Calculating a Standard Error for the Gini Coefficient Some Further Results PDF Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 66 3 425 433 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 202 6462 doi 10 1111 j 1468 0084 2004 00086 x S2CID 16972099 Archived from the original PDF on 5 May 2004 Gini Corrado 1912 Variabilita e mutabilita Bibcode 1912vamu book G Reprinted in Pizetti E Salvemini T eds 1955 Memorie di metodologica statistica Rome Libreria Eredi Virgilio Veschi Gini Corrado 1921 Measurement of Inequality of Incomes The Economic Journal 31 121 124 126 doi 10 2307 2223319 JSTOR 2223319 Giorgi Giovanni Maria 1990 Bibliographic portrait of the Gini concentration ratio PDF Metron 48 183 231 Archived from the original PDF on 4 August 2016 Karagiannis E Kovacevic M 2000 A Method to Calculate the Jackknife Variance Estimator for the Gini Coefficient Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 62 119 122 doi 10 1111 1468 0084 00163 Mills Jeffrey A Zandvakili Sourushe 1997 Statistical Inference via Bootstrapping for Measures of Inequality PDF Journal of Applied Econometrics 12 2 133 150 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 172 5003 doi 10 1002 SICI 1099 1255 199703 12 2 lt 133 AID JAE433 gt 3 0 CO 2 H hdl 10419 186818 JSTOR 2284908 Archived PDF from the original on 18 July 2012 Modarres Reza Gastwirth Joseph L 2006 A Cautionary Note on Estimating the Standard Error of the Gini Index of Inequality Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 68 3 385 390 doi 10 1111 j 1468 0084 2006 00167 x S2CID 122716409 Morgan James 1962 The Anatomy of Income Distribution The Review of Economics and Statistics 44 3 270 283 doi 10 2307 1926398 JSTOR 1926398 Ogwang Tomson 2000 A Convenient Method of Computing the Gini Index and its Standard Error Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 62 123 129 doi 10 1111 1468 0084 00164 Ogwang Tomson 2004 Calculating a Standard Error for the Gini Coefficient Some Further Results Reply Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 66 3 435 437 doi 10 1111 j 1468 0084 2004 00087 x S2CID 122160535 Xu Kuan January 2004 How Has the Literature on Gini s Index Evolved in the Past 80 Years PDF Department of Economics Dalhousie University Archived from the original PDF on 28 September 2006 Retrieved 1 June 2006 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help The Chinese version of this paper appears in Xu Kuan 2003 How Has the Literature on Gini s Index Evolved in the Past 80 Years China Economic Quarterly 2 757 778 Yitzhaki Shlomo 1991 Calculating Jackknife Variance Estimators for Parameters of the Gini Method Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 9 2 235 239 doi 10 2307 1391792 JSTOR 1391792 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gini coefficient Deutsche Bundesbank Do banks diversify loan portfolios 2005 on using e g the Gini coefficient for risk evaluation of loan portfolios Forbes Article In praise of inequality Measuring Software Project Risk With The Gini Coefficient an application of the Gini coefficient to software The World Bank Measuring Inequality Travis Hale University of Texas Inequality Project The Theoretical Basics of Popular Inequality Measures online computation of examples 1A 1B Article from The Guardian analysing inequality in the UK 1974 2006 World Income Inequality Database Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries U S Income Distribution Just How Unequal Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Gini coefficient amp oldid 1127880081, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.