IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erg/wpaper/618.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Unified Framework to Decomposing Inequality with Illustrations to Some Arab Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Sami Bibi
  • AbdelRahmen El-Lahga

    (University of Tunis)

Abstract

It is common to decompose the inequality indices of the General Entropy class to understand economic inequality and guide the design of economic policy. Elbers et al. (2008) suggest an improved approach to inequality decomposition of those indices which is less sensitive to the degree of sub-partitioning of population groups than the conventional decompositions. In this paper, we extend the approach of Elbers et al. (2008) to the ß class of inequality indices which includes a large variety of inequality indices. This class generalizes and comprises different well-known families of inequality indices as particular cases. Moreover, some of its members enable to focus on a particular part of the income distribution at which redistributive policies could be aimed. We illustrate our methodology using micro datasets from six Arab countries to offer a reassessment of between-group inequality in these countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Sami Bibi & AbdelRahmen El-Lahga, 2011. "A Unified Framework to Decomposing Inequality with Illustrations to Some Arab Countries," Working Papers 618, Economic Research Forum, revised 08 Jan 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/618.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://bit.ly/2n9z3eb
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    2. Chris Elbers & Peter Lanjouw & Johan Mistiaen & Berk Özler, 2008. "Reinterpreting between-group inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(3), pages 231-245, September.
    3. Ravi Kanbur, 2006. "The policy significance of inequality decompositions," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 4(3), pages 367-374, December.
    4. Sami Bibi & AbdelRahmen El-Lahga, 2010. "A Unified Framework to Measuring Inequality in The Arab Countries," Working Papers 567, Economic Research Forum, revised 11 Jan 2010.
    5. Rolf Aaberge, 2007. "Gini’s nuclear family," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(3), pages 305-322, December.
    6. Sami Bibi & Jean‐Yves Duclos, 2010. "A Comparison Of The Poverty Impact Of Transfers, Taxes And Market Income Across Five Oecd Countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 387-406, October.
    7. 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 617-628, October.
    8. Abdelkrim Araar, 2006. "On the Decomposition of the Gini Coefficient: an Exact Approach, with an Illustration Using Cameroonian Data," Cahiers de recherche 0602, CIRPEE.
    9. Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2006. "Poverty and Equity," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, Springer, number 978-0-387-33318-2, Fall.
    10. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sami Bibi & AbdelRahmen El-Lahga, 2010. "Decomposing Income Inequality in The Arab Region," Working Papers 557, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Jan 2010.
    2. Tomoki Fujii, 2013. "Geographic decomposition of inequality in health and wealth: evidence from Cambodia," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(3), pages 373-392, September.
    3. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Oscar Volij, 2011. "An Axiomatic Characterization Of The Theil Inequality Order," Working Papers 1103, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    4. Guido Erreygers & Roselinde Kessels, 2017. "Socioeconomic Status and Health: A New Approach to the Measurement of Bivariate Inequality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-23, June.
    5. Tugce, Cuhadaroglu, 2013. "My Group Beats Your Group: Evaluating Non-Income Inequalities," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-49, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    6. Marrero,Gustavo Alberto & Rodríguez,Juan Gabriel & Van Der Weide,Roy, 2021. "Does Race and Gender Inequality Impact Income Growth ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9865, The World Bank.
    7. Rolf Aaberge & Magne Mogstad, 2011. "Robust inequality comparisons," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 353-371, September.
    8. Sebastian Levine & Benjamin Roberts, 2013. "Robust Estimates of Changes in Poverty and Inequality in Post-Independence Namibia," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(2), pages 167-191, June.
    9. Camacho Cuena, Eva & Neugebauer, Tibor & Seidl, Christian, 2005. "Compensating justice beats leaky buckets: an experimental investigation," Economics Working Papers 2005-06, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    10. Kleiber, Christian, 1997. "The existence of population inequality measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 39-44, November.
    11. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia, 2008. "The ‘Extended’ Atkinson family: The class of multiplicatively decomposable inequality measures, and some new graphical procedures for analysts," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(2), pages 211-225, June.
    12. Eva Camacho-Cuena & Tibor Neugebauer & Christian Seidl, 2007. "Leaky Buckets Versus Compensating Justice: An Experimental Investigation," Working Papers 74, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    13. Marko Ledić & Ivica Rubil & Ivica Urban, 2023. "Tax progressivity and social welfare with a continuum of inequality views," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(5), pages 1266-1296, October.
    14. Luis Huesca & Arturo Robles Valencia & Abdelkrim Araar, 2015. "Progressivity and decomposition of VAT in the Mexican border, 2014," Estudios Regionales en Economía, Población y Desarrollo. Cuadernos de Trabajo de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez. 25, Cuerpo Académico 41 de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, revised 01 Jan 2015.
    15. Ferreira,Francisco H. G., 2022. "The Analysis of Inequality in the Bretton Woods Institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10149, The World Bank.
    16. Joep Burger & Jacqueline Beuningen, 2020. "Measuring well-being dispersion on discrete rating scales," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 749-773, June.
    17. Satya R. Chakravarty & Nachiketa Chattopadhyay & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2016. "On a Family of Achievement and Shortfall Inequality Indices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(12), pages 1503-1513, December.
    18. B. Essama-Nssah & Saumik Paul & Léandre Bassolé, 2013. "Accounting for Heterogeneity in Growth Incidence in Cameroon Using Recentered Influence Function Regression," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(5), pages 757-795, November.
    19. Ivica Urban, 2014. "Contributions of taxes and benefits to vertical and horizontal effects," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 619-645, March.
    20. Srdjan Djindjic, 2014. "The Redistributive Effects Of Personal Taxes And Social Benefits In The Republic Of Serbia," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 59(203), pages 91-118, October –.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:erg:wpaper:618. 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: Sherine Ghoneim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erfaceg.html .

    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.