IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v34y2006i3p296-333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Statistical Inference for Measures of Inequality With a Cross-National Bootstrap Application

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy Patrick Moran

    (State University of New York—Stony Brook)

Abstract

The problem of statistical inference in inequality research has persisted despite the solutions long suggested by asymptotic theory. This article provides a thorough analysis of the theoretical and practical aspects of conducting statistical inference in the context of inequality data. Using the income surveys of the Luxembourg Income Study, the article outlines in detail the new bootstrap procedures, assesses their performance, and demonstrates their effectiveness in evaluating levels and trends in cross-national inequality. It provides an analytical evaluation of current advancements in inequality measurement and for the first time applies these methods in the context of comparative research, but it also can be used as practical guide for handling the problems of statistical inference in more general social scientific settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Patrick Moran, 2006. "Statistical Inference for Measures of Inequality With a Cross-National Bootstrap Application," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 34(3), pages 296-333, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:34:y:2006:i:3:p:296-333
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124105283117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124105283117
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124105283117?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miguel Székely & Marianne Hilgert, 1999. "What's Behind the Inequality We Measure: An Investigation Using Latin American Data," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6458, Inter-American Development Bank.
    2. Russell Davidson & Jean-Yves Duclos, 1997. "Statistical Inference for the Measurement of the Incidence of Taxes and Transfers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(6), pages 1453-1466, November.
    3. Gastwirth, Joseph L & Nayak, Tapan K & Krieger, Abba M, 1986. "Large Sample Theory for the Bounds on the Gini and Related Indices of Inequality Estimated from Grouped Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(2), pages 269-273, April.
    4. Philippe Kerm, 2002. "Inference on inequality measures: A Monte Carlo experiment," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 283-306, December.
    5. Horowitz, Joel L., 1994. "Bootstrap-based critical values for the information matrix test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 395-411, April.
    6. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589819.
    7. Atkinson, A B, 1997. "Bringing Income Distribution in from the Cold," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(441), pages 297-321, March.
    8. Mark Trede, 2002. "Bootstrapping inequality measures under the null hypothesis: Is it worth the effort?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 77(1), pages 261-282, December.
    9. Frank A Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire, 2002. "Sensitivity of Inequality Measures to Extreme Values," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 60, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    10. Davidson, Russell & Flachaire, Emmanuel, 2007. "Asymptotic and bootstrap inference for inequality and poverty measures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 141-166, November.
    11. Gottschalk, Peter & Smeeding, Timothy M., 2000. "Empirical evidence on income inequality in industrialized countries," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, pages 261-307, Elsevier.
    12. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1999. "The Size Distortion Of Bootstrap Tests," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 361-376, June.
    13. Kakwani, Nanak, 1993. "Statistical Inference in the Measurement of Poverty," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(4), pages 632-639, November.
    14. Beach, Charles M & Richmond, James, 1985. "Joint Confidence Intervals for Income Shares and Lorenz Curves," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(2), pages 439-450, June.
    15. Mills, Jeffrey A & Zandvakili, Sourushe, 1997. "Statistical Inference via Bootstrapping for Measures of Inequality," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 133-150, March-Apr.
    16. Bishop, John A & Chakraborti, S & Thistle, Paul D, 1989. "Asymptotically Distribution-Free Statistical Inference for Generalized Lorenz Curves," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(4), pages 725-727, November.
    17. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G, 1999. "Bootstrap Testing in Nonlinear Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(2), pages 487-508, May.
    18. Xu, Kuan, 2000. "Inference for Generalized Gini Indices Using the Iterated-Bootstrap Method," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(2), pages 223-227, April.
    19. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1997. "The asymptotic distribution of linear indices of inequality, progressivity and redistribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 51-57, January.
    20. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589833.
    21. Thistle, Paul D, 1990. "Large Sample Properties of Two Inequality Indices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(3), pages 725-728, May.
    22. Marianne Hilgert & Miguel Sz kely, 1999. "Whats Behind the Inequality We Measure? An Investigation Using Latin American Data," LIS Working papers 234, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    23. Schluter, Christian, 1998. "Statistical inference with mobility indices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 157-162, May.
    24. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1991. "Calculating Jackknife Variance Estimators for Parameters of the Gini Method," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(2), pages 235-239, April.
    25. Gastwirth, Joseph L, 1974. "Large Sample Theory of Some Measures of Income Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 191-196, January.
    26. James G. MacKinnon & Russell Davidson, 2000. "Improving The Reliability Of Bootstrap Tests," Working Paper 995, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    27. Van de gaer, Dirk & Funnell, Nicola & McCarthy, Tom, 1999. "Statistical inference for two measures of inequality when incomes are correlated," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 295-300, September.
    28. Cowell, Frank A., 1989. "Sampling variance and decomposable inequality measures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 27-41, September.
    29. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    30. Biewen, Martin, 2002. "Bootstrap inference for inequality, mobility and poverty measurement," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 317-342, June.
    31. Sandstrom, Arne & Wretman, Jan H & Walden, Bertil, 1988. "Variance Estimators of the Gini Coefficient--Probability Sampling," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 6(1), pages 113-119, January.
    32. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589826.
    33. Charles M. Beach & Russell Davidson, 1983. "Distribution-Free Statistical Inference with Lorenz Curves and Income Shares," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 723-735.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Jesuit, 2008. "Subnational Analyses Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Data Archive," LIS Working papers 494, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Shawn F. Dorius, 2008. "Global Demographic Convergence? A Reconsideration of Changing Intercountry Inequality in Fertility," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 34(3), pages 519-537, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy Moran, 2005. "Bootstrapping the LIS: Statistical Inference and Patterns of Inequality in the Global North," LIS Working papers 378, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Biewen, Martin, 2002. "Bootstrap inference for inequality, mobility and poverty measurement," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 317-342, June.
    3. Juan Ramón García, "undated". "La desigualdad salarial en España. Efectos de un diseño muestral complejo," Working Papers 2003-26, FEDEA.
    4. Russell Davidson, 2010. "Innis Lecture: Inference on income distributions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1122-1148, November.
    5. Raquel Andres & Samuel Calonge, 2005. "Inference on Income Inequality and Tax Progressivity Indices: U-Statistics and Bootstrap Methods," Working Papers 09, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    6. Davidson, Russell & Flachaire, Emmanuel, 2007. "Asymptotic and bootstrap inference for inequality and poverty measures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 141-166, November.
    7. Judith Clarke & Nilanjana Roy, 2012. "On statistical inference for inequality measures calculated from complex survey data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 499-524, October.
    8. Russell Davidson & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2000. "Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(6), pages 1435-1464, November.
    9. Schluter, Christian & van Garderen, Kees Jan, 2009. "Edgeworth expansions and normalizing transforms for inequality measures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 16-29, May.
    10. William Horrace & Joseph Marchand & Timothy Smeeding, 2008. "Ranking inequality: Applications of multivariate subset selection," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(1), pages 5-32, March.
    11. Tim Goedemé, 2013. "How much Confidence can we have in EU-SILC? Complex Sample Designs and the Standard Error of the Europe 2020 Poverty Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 89-110, January.
    12. Frank A. Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire, 2014. "Statistical Methods for Distributional Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01115996, HAL.
    13. Jean-Yves Duclos & Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2004. "Polarization: Concepts, Measurement, Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1737-1772, November.
    14. Ou Bianling & Long Zhihe & Li Wenqian, 2019. "Bootstrap LM Tests for Spatial Dependence in Panel Data Models with Fixed Effects," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 7(4), pages 330-343, August.
    15. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 2006. "The power of bootstrap and asymptotic tests," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 421-441, August.
    16. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "A Review of Decomposition of Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1221, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Zhenlin Yang, 2013. "LM Tests of Spatial Dependence Based on Bootstrap Critical Values," Working Papers 03-2013, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    18. Jamel Jouini, 2006. "Bootstrap Tests in Bivariate VAR Process with Single Structural Change : Power versus Corrected Size and Empirical Illustration," Working Papers halshs-00410759, HAL.
    19. Joel L. Horowitz, 2018. "Bootstrap Methods in Econometrics," Papers 1809.04016, arXiv.org.
    20. Joel L. Horowitz, 2018. "Bootstrap methods in econometrics," CeMMAP working papers CWP53/18, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:34:y:2006:i:3:p:296-333. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.