Abstract
An index of inequality is a summary statistic of the dispersion of incomes. Indices of inequality are employed for evaluating a particular income distribution and for comparing different distributions. The typical questions addressed along these lines are: (i) How has inequality in region A changed over time ? (ii) Is inequality in region A greater than that in region B? (iii) Is the pre-tax income distribution more unequal than the post-tax distribution ? (iv) What are the major sources of inequality in region A? (v) Given any partitioning of the population, what are the contributions of “within-group” and “between-group” components of inequality?
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Chakravarty, S.R. (1999). Measuring Inequality: The Axiomatic Approach. In: Silber, J. (eds) Handbook of Income Inequality Measurement. Recent Economic Thought Series, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4413-1_5
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