We investigate the properties of a family of social evaluation functions and inequality indices which merge the features of the family of Atkinson (1970) and S-Gini (Donaldson and Weymark (1980, 1983), Yitzhaki (1983) and Kakwani (1980)) indices. Income inequality aversion is captured by decreasing marginal utilities, and aversion to rank inequality is captured by rank-dependent ethical weights, thus providing an ethically-flexible dual basis for the assessment of inequality and equity. These social evaluation functions can be interpreted as average utility corrected for the illfare of relative deprivation. They can alternatively be understood as averages of altruistic well-being in a population. They moreover have a simple graphical interpretation.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Economics Bulletin in its journal Economics Bulletin.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C6 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1983.
"On an Extension of the Gini Inequality Index,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 24(3), pages 617-28, October.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)