The Necessary Requirement of Median Independence for Relative Bipolarisation Measurement

Gaston Yalonetzky

A chapter in Research on Economic Inequality, 2017, vol. 25, pp 51-62 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: The relative bipolarisation literature features examples of indices which depend on the median of the distribution, including the renowned Foster–Wolfson index. This study shows that the use of the median in the design and computation of relative bipolarisation indices is both unnecessary and problematic. It is unnecessary because we can rely on existing well-behaved, median-independent indices. It is problematic because, as the study shows, median-dependent indices violate the basic transfer axioms of bipolarisation (defining spread and clustering properties), except when the median is unaffected by the transfers. The convenience of discarding the median from index computations is further illustrated with a numerical example in which median-independent indices rank distributions according to the basic transfer axioms while median-dependent indices do not.

Keywords: Relative bipolarisation; median; D30; D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

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 ... 9-258520170000025002
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The necessary requirement of median independence for relative bipolarisation measurement (2016)
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:reinzz:s1049-258520170000025002

DOI: 10.1108/S1049-258520170000025002

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Research on Economic Inequality from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().