Measuring Segregation

David Frankel and Oscar Volij ()

Economic theory and game theory from Oscar Volij

Abstract: We propose a set of axioms for the measurement of multigroup school segregation. They are motivated by two criteria: do ethnic groups have similar distributions across schools? And are schools ethnically representative of their district? Our axioms are satisfied by a unique ordering. It is represented by the Mutual Information index. This index, originally proposed by Henri Theil, has a more intuitive decomposition than other indices. As an application, we find that segregation between districts within cities accounts for 33% of school segregation. Segregation across states, driven mainly by the distinct residential patterns of Hispanics, contributes another 32%.

Keywords: Segregation; segregation indices. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 C81 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-09-18
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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http://volij.co.il/publications/papers/MutualInfo.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring Segregation (2010)
Working Paper: MEASURING SEGREGATION (2007)
Working Paper: Measuring Segregation (2007)
Working Paper: Measuring segregation (2007)
Working Paper: Measuring Segregation (2004)
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