Measuring inequality in society

Ka Ching Chan, Christopher T. Lenard, Terence M. Mills and Ruth F. G. Williams

Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods, 2019, vol. 48, issue 1, 88-99

Abstract: Governments develop policies to reduce unwarranted inequalities in society. Hence, there is a need for well-founded measures of inequality to monitor the impact of such policies. The discipline of economics has developed many such measures over the last century. Although these measures have focused on measuring inequality of incomes, they can be adapted to other economic variables. In this multidisciplinary, review paper, we present an introduction to measures of economic inequality from a mathematical perspective, and highlight their policy implications. This is an area in which mathematics and economics can contribute to justice and fairness in society.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03610926.2018.1501486 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:lstaxx:v:48:y:2019:i:1:p:88-99

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/lsta20

DOI: 10.1080/03610926.2018.1501486

Access Statistics for this article

Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods is currently edited by Debbie Iscoe

More articles in Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().