IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tsj/stataj/v12y2012i3p393-405.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adjusting for age effects in cross-sectional distributions

Author

Listed:
  • Ingvild Almas

    (Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

  • Tarjei Havnes

    (University of Oslo)

  • Magne Mogstad

    (University College London)

Abstract

Income and wealth differ over the life cycle. In cross-sectional distributions of income or wealth, classical inequality measures such as the Gini could therefore find substantial inequality even if everyone has the same lifetime income or wealth. We describe the adjusted Gini index (Almas and Mogstad, 2012, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 114: 24–54), which is a generalization of the classical Gini index with attractive properties, and we describe the adgini command, which provides the adjusted Gini index and the classical Gini index. The adgini command also provides options to produce other well-known age-adjusted inequality measures, such as the Paglin-Gini (Paglin, 1975, American Economic Review 65: 598–609) and the Wertz-Gini (Wertz, 1979, American Economic Review 69: 670–672), and provides efficient estimation of the classical Gini coefficient. Copyright 2012 by StataCorp LP.

Suggested Citation

  • Ingvild Almas & Tarjei Havnes & Magne Mogstad, 2012. "Adjusting for age effects in cross-sectional distributions," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(3), pages 393-405, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:tsj:stataj:v:12:y:2012:i:3:p:393-405
    Note: to access software from within Stata, net describe http://www.stata-journal.com/software/sj12-3/st0266/
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.stata-journal.com/article.html?article=st0266
    File Function: link to article purchase
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bossert W., 1996. "Redistribution mechanisms based on individual characteristics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 51-51, February.
    2. Lambert, Peter J & Aronson, J Richard, 1993. "Inequality Decomposition Analysis and the Gini Coefficient Revisited," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1221-1227, September.
    3. Nelson, Eric R, 1977. "The Measurement and Trend of Inequality: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 497-501, June.
    4. Konow, James, 1996. "A positive theory of economic fairness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 13-35, October.
    5. Davies, James B. & Shorrocks, Anthony F., 2000. "The distribution of wealth," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 605-675, Elsevier.
    6. Anthony Shorrocks & Guanghua Wan, 2005. "Spatial decomposition of inequality," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 59-81, January.
    7. Paglin, Morton, 1975. "The Measurement and Trend of Inequality: A Basic Revision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(4), pages 598-609, September.
    8. Wertz, Kenneth L, 1979. "The Measurement of Inequality: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 670-672, September.
    9. Atkinson, A B, 1971. "The Distribution of Wealth and the Individual Life-cycle," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(2), pages 239-254, July.
    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. Andrew Hussey & Michael Jetter, 2017. "Long term trends in fair and unfair inequality in the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(12), pages 1147-1163, March.
    2. Andrew J. Hussey & Michael Jetter & Dianne McWilliam, 2017. "Explaining Inequality Between Countries: The Declining Role of Political Institutions," CESifo Working Paper Series 6320, CESifo.
    3. Pierre Desrochers & Vincent Geloso & Joanna Szurmak, 2021. "Care to Wager Again? An Appraisal of Paul Ehrlich's Counterbet Offer to Julian Simon, Part 2: Critical Analysis," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(2), pages 808-829, March.
    4. Aristizábal-Ramírez, María & Canavire Bacarreza, Gustavo J. & Jetter, Michael, 2015. "Income Inequality in Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador: Different Reasons," IZA Discussion Papers 9210, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Ingvild Almås & Magne Mogstad, 2009. "Older or Wealthier? The Impact of Age Adjustments on the Wealth Inequality Ranking of Countries," Discussion Papers 583, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    2. Ingvild Almås & Tarjei Havnes & Magne Mogstad, 2011. "Baby booming inequality? Demographic change and earnings inequality in Norway, 1967–2000," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 629-650, December.
    3. Ingvild Almås & Magne Mogstad, 2009. "Older or Wealthier? The Impact of Age Adjustments on the Wealth Inequality Ranking of Countries," Discussion Papers 583, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    4. Frank A. Cowell & Philippe Kerm, 2015. "Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 671-710, September.
    5. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Waldenström, Daniel, 2018. "Inheritance and wealth inequality: Evidence from population registers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 17-30.
    6. Ingvild Alm s, 2008. "Equalizing Income Versus Equalizing Opportunity: A Comparison of the United States and Germany," LIS Working papers 476, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Jochen O. Mierau & James Rockey, 2015. "Inequality in an Equal Society: Theory and Evidence," Discussion Papers in Economics 15/23, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    8. John Creedy, 1991. "Lifetime Earnings and Inequality," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 67(1), pages 46-58, March.
    9. François Bourguignon & Christian Morrisson, 1984. "La mobilité des salaires sur le cycle de vie : un échantillon de cadres français sur trente ans," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 35(5), pages 929-970.
    10. John Fitzgerald & Tim Maloney, 1990. "The Impact of Federal Income Taxes and Cash Transfers On the Distribution of Lifetime Household Income, 1969-1981," Public Finance Review, , vol. 18(2), pages 182-197, April.
    11. Gill, David & Stone, Rebecca, 2015. "Desert and inequity aversion in teams," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 42-54.
    12. Fachinger, Uwe, 2002. "Sparfähigkeit und Vorsorge gegenüber sozialen Risiken bei Selbständigen: Einige Informationen auf der Basis der Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe 1998," MPRA Paper 1126, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Francisco Azpitarte, 2008. "The Household Wealth Distribution in Spain: The Role of Housing and Financial Wealth," Working Papers 83, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    14. Niimi, Yoko & Horioka, Charles Yuji, 2016. "The Impact of Intergenerational Transfers on Household Wealth Inequality in Japan and the United States," AGI Working Paper Series 2016-20, Asian Growth Research Institute.
    15. Frank Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire & Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, 2013. "Reference distributions and inequality measurement," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(4), pages 421-437, December.
    16. Magdalou, Brice & Nock, Richard, 2011. "Income distributions and decomposable divergence measures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2440-2454.
    17. Andrew J. Hussey & Michael Jetter & Dianne McWilliam, 2021. "The Fundamental Determinants of Economic Inequality in Average Income Across Countries: The Declining Role of Political Institutions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(1), pages 104-133, March.
    18. Takahiro Akita & Sachiko Miyata, 2020. "Urban and Rural Dimensions of the Role of Education in Inequality: A Comparative Analysis between Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines," Working Papers EMS_2020_04, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    19. Jiandong Chen & Dai Dai & Ming Pu & Wenxuan Hou & Qiaobin Feng, 2010. "The trend of the Gini coefficient of China," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 10910, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    20. Niimi, Yoko, 2016. "To Avoid or Not to Avoid Inheritance Taxes? That Is the Question for Parents: Empirical Evidence from Japan," MPRA Paper 71693, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:tsj:stataj:v:12:y:2012:i:3:p:393-405. 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: Christopher F. Baum or Lisa Gilmore (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.stata-journal.com/ .

    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.