Practical modified Gini index

Miki Malul, Daniel Shapira and Amir Shoham

Applied Economics Letters, 2013, vol. 20, issue 4, 324-327

Abstract: The Gini index is the most common method for estimating the level of income inequality in countries. In this article, we suggest a simple modification that takes into account the moderating effect of in-kind government benefits. Unlike other studies that use micro-level data that are rarely available for many countries or over a period of time, the proposed Modified Gini (MGINI) index could be calculated using just the regularly available data for each country. Such data include the original Gini coefficient, government consumption expenditures, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. This modified version of the Gini index allows us to calculate the level of inequality more precisely and make better comparisons between countries and over time.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2012.699182 (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:apeclt:v:20:y:2013:i:4:p:324-327

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEL20

DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2012.699182

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics Letters is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics Letters from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().