Measuring Segregation

David Frankel and Oscar Volij ()

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We propose a set of axioms for the measurement of school-based segregation with any number of ethnic groups. These axioms are motivated by two criteria. The first is evenness: how much do ethnic groups’ distributions across schools differ? The second is representativeness: how different are schools’ ethnic distributions from one another? We prove that a unique ordering satisfies our axioms. It is represented by an index that was originally proposed by Henri Theil (1971). This “Mutual Information Index” is related to Theil’s better known Entropy Index, which violates two of our axioms.

Keywords: Segregation; measurement; schools; education; indices; peer effects; equal opportunity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 C81 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-05-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/papers/p3868-2007-05-24.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring Segregation (2010)
Working Paper: MEASURING SEGREGATION (2007)
Working Paper: Measuring segregation (2007)
Working Paper: Measuring Segregation (2005)
Working Paper: Measuring Segregation (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:12818

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