About the Accuracy of Gini Index for Measuring the Poverty

Stefan Stefanescu

Journal for Economic Forecasting, 2011, issue 3, 255-266

Abstract: The Gini index is often used to measure the income inequality presented inside a specified group of individuals and sometimes also for evaluating the “poverty” degree of this population. In this article we show that Gini’s index is not always so adequate to measure the poverty level of an analyzed population. More precisely, we’ll get two very different income distributions which finally give the same value for Gini’s index. Having in mind this aspect, we recommend with priority to use the Gini index only together with other similar or complementary poverty indicators to evaluate the poverty level of a given population.

Keywords: measurement and analysis of poverty; Gini index; Lorenz curve; income distribution; inequality index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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