Measuring inequality

Thomas McGregor, Brock Smith and Samuel Wills

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2019, vol. 35, issue 3, 368-395

Abstract: Inequality is important, both for its own sake and for its political, social, and economic implications. However, measuring inequality is not straightforward, as it requires decisions to be made on the variable, population, and distributional characteristics of interest. These decisions will naturally influence the conclusions that are drawn so they must be closely linked to an underlying purpose, which is ultimately defined by a social welfare function. This paper outlines important considerations when making each of these decisions, before surveying recent advances in measuring inequality and suggesting avenues for future work.

Keywords: inequality; poverty; income measurement; social welfare; Gini coefficient; night-time lights; machine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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