The Lorenz curve as an archetype: A historico-epistemological study

Laurent Derobert and Guillaume Thieriot

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2003, vol. 10, issue 4, 573-585

Abstract: In 1905, Max O. Lorenz suggested a simple method of measuring the concentration of wealth, based on the visual representation of income distribution. The Lorenz curve is now very popular and can be considered as canonical. However, the path leading from Lorenz's original work to contemporary interpretations of his graph has been anything but simple. We thus propose to trace the origin, the evolution and the various subsequent interpretations of the Lorenz graph. We argue that the original Lorenz curve has been shifted in epistemological status as well as inverted in graphic appearance.

Keywords: Archetype; concentration of wealth; epistemiology; images; Lorenz; Lorenz curve; welfare economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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DOI: 10.1080/0967256032000137720

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