The paper shows that the value of the Gini Index of Inequality (Concentration) depends on the skewness of the income distribution. It i s first proved that the Gini Index belongs to the family of relative mean deviat ions. Then a new asymmetry index is defined which allows one to show that the Gini Index of symmetric distributions is always smaller or equal to one-half, whereas a necessary condition for the Gini Index to be greater than one-half is that the distribution be skewed to the right. Copyright 1987 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.
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.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association in its journal International Economic Review.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
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.)