A Simple Consistent Nonparametric Estimator of the Lorenz Curve

Yu Yvette Zhang, Ximing Wu () and Qi Li

A chapter in Essays in Honor of Aman Ullah, 2016, vol. 36, pp 635-653 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: We propose a nonparametric estimator of the Lorenz curve that satisfies its theoretical properties, including monotonicity and convexity. We adopt a transformation approach that transforms a constrained estimation problem into an unconstrained one, which is estimated nonparametrically. We utilize the splines to facilitate the numerical implementation of our estimator and to provide a parametric representation of the constructed Lorenz curve. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed estimator. We apply our method to estimate the Lorenz curve of the U.S. household income distribution and calculate the Gini index based on the estimated Lorenz curve.

Keywords: Lorenz curve; spline estimation; monotonicity; convexity; Gini index; C14; C52; D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... 1-905320160000036028
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

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:eme:aecozz:s0731-905320160000036028

DOI: 10.1108/S0731-905320160000036028

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Advances in Econometrics from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().