IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/isu/genres/12811.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Treatment of Absolute Indices of Polarization

Author

Listed:
  • Chakravarty, Sanya R.
  • Majumdar, A.
  • Roy, Sonali

Abstract

Absolute polarization indices remain unchanged under equal absolute augmentation in all incomes. This paper identifies the class of absolute polarization indices whose orderings of alternative income distributions agree with the rankings generated by nonintersecting absolute polarization curves. We explore the possibility of using the Kolm (1976)–Blackorby‐Donaldson (1980) ethical absolute inequality index in polarization measurement. We establish that although inequality and polarization are dissimilar concepts, different absolute inequality indices can be employed to design alternative absolute polarization indices. A numerical illustration is provided using Indian data and it is shown that inequality and polarization are different issues in income distribution analysis.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Chakravarty, Sanya R. & Majumdar, A. & Roy, Sonali, 2007. "A Treatment of Absolute Indices of Polarization," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12811, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:isu:genres:12811
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joan Esteban & Carlos Gradín & Debraj Ray, 2007. "An Extension of a Measure of Polarization, with an application to the income distribution of five OECD countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, April.
    2. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    3. Kolm, Serge-Christophe, 1976. "Unequal inequalities. II," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 82-111, August.
    4. Satya R. Chakravarty & Patrick Moyes, 2003. "Individual welfare, social deprivation and income taxation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 21(4), pages 843-869, June.
    5. Michael C. Wolfson, 1997. "Divergent Inequalities: Theory And Empirical Results," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 43(4), pages 401-421, December.
    6. Wolfson, Michael C, 1994. "When Inequalities Diverge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 353-358, May.
    7. Wolfson, Michael, 1997. "Divergent Inequalities - Theory and Empirical Results (Revised Edition)," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1997066e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    8. Z. M. Berrebi & Jacques Silber, 1985. "Income Inequality Indices and Deprivation: A Generalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(3), pages 807-810.
    9. Kolm, Serge-Christophe, 1976. "Unequal inequalities. I," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 416-442, June.
    10. Kakwani, Nanak, 1984. "The Relative Deprivation Curve and Its Applications," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(4), pages 384-394, October.
    11. Satya R. Chakravarty & Amita Majumder, 2001. "Inequality, Polarisation and Welfare: Theory and Applications," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 1-13, March.
    12. Dasgupta, Partha & Sen, Amartya & Starrett, David, 1973. "Notes on the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 180-187, April.
    13. Satya Chakravarty & Diganta Mukherjee, 1999. "Measures of Deprivation and their Meaning in Terms of Social Satisfaction," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 89-100, August.
    14. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1999. "Conflict and Distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 379-415, August.
    15. Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A., 1980. "A single-parameter generalization of the Gini indices of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 67-86, February.
    16. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1983. "Ranking Income Distributions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(197), pages 3-17, February.
    17. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931.
    18. Amiel, Yoram & Cowell, Frank A., 1992. "Measurement of income inequality : Experimental test by questionnaire," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 3-26, February.
    19. Kakwani, Nanak, 1984. "The Relative Deprivation Curve and Its Applications: Reply," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(4), pages 400-405, October.
    20. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1980. "A Theoretical Treatment of Indices of Absolute Inequality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(1), pages 107-136, February.
    21. X. Zhang & R. Kanbur, 2001. "What Difference Do Polarisation Measures Make? An Application to China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 85-98.
    22. Robert A. Pollak, 1971. "Additive Utility Functions and Linear Engel Curves," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(4), pages 401-414.
    23. Wolfson, Michael C, 1997. "Divergent Inequalities: Theory and Empirical Results," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 43(4), pages 401-421, December.
    24. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1979. "Relative Deprivation and the Gini Coefficient," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(2), pages 321-324.
    25. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    26. John D. Hey & Peter J. Lambert, 1980. "Relative Deprivation and the Gini Coefficient: Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 567-573.
    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. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2007:i:36:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Fabio Clementi & Francesco Schettino, 2013. "Income polarization in Brazil, 2001-2011: A distributional analysis using PNAD data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 1796-1815.
    3. F. Clementi & A. L. Dabalen & V. Molini & F. Schettino, 2017. "When the Centre Cannot Hold: Patterns of Polarization in Nigeria," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 608-632, December.
    4. Ma Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Henar Díez, 2010. "Unit Consistency And Bipolarization Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 65-83, March.
    5. Ibrahim Tutar & Aysit Tansel, 2012. "An Analysis Of Political And Institutional Power Dispersion: The Case Of Turkey," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 548-565, October.
    6. Melanie Krause, 2017. "The Millennium Peak in Club Convergence: A New Look at Distributional Changes in The Wealth of Nations," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 621-642, April.
    7. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2015. "A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 422-439, September.
    8. Joan Esteban & Carlos Gradín & Debraj Ray, 2007. "An Extension of a Measure of Polarization, with an application to the income distribution of five OECD countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Chiara Gigliarano & Pietro Muliere, 2012. "Measuring Income Polarization Using an Enlarged Middle Class," Working Papers 271, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    10. Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2010. "Polarization Orderings Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 47-64, March.
    11. Satya Chakravarty & Bhargav Maharaj, 2012. "Ethnic polarization orderings and indices," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 7(1), pages 99-123, May.
    12. Mogues, Tewodaj, 2008. "A two-dimensional measure of polarization:," IFPRI discussion papers 837, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    13. Fuad Aleskerov & Victoria Oleynik, 2016. "Multidimensional Polarization Index and its Application to an Analysis of the Russian State Duma," Papers 1608.01351, arXiv.org.
    14. Chiara Gigliarano & Daniel Nowak & Karl Mosler, 2019. "A Polarization Index for Overlapping Groups," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 712-735, December.
    15. Mariateresa Ciommi & Chiara Gigliarano & Giovanni Maria Giorgi, 2019. "Bonferroni And De Vergottini Are Back: New Subgroup Decompositions And Bipolarization Measures," Working Papers 439, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    16. Ibrahim Tutar & Aysit Tansel, 2012. "An Analysis Of Political And Institutional Power Dispersion: The Case Of Turkey," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 548-565, October.
    17. Peter Lambert, 2010. "James Foster and Michael Wolfson’s 1992 paper “Polarization and the decline of the middle class”," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 241-245, June.
    18. Alessio Fusco & Jacques Silber, 2014. "On social polarization and ordinal variables: the case of self-assessed health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(8), pages 841-851, November.

    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. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2015. "A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 422-439, September.
    2. Satya Chakravarty, 2007. "A deprivation-based axiomatic characterization of the absolute Bonferroni index of inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(3), pages 339-351, December.
    3. Labeaga, José M. & Molina, José Alberto & Navarro Paniagua, Maria, 2007. "Income Satisfaction and Deprivation in Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 2702, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Patrick Moyes & Brice Magdalou, 2008. "Social Welfare, Inequality and Deprivation," LIS Working papers 502, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Patrick Moyes, 2007. "An extended Gini approach to inequality measurement," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(3), pages 279-303, December.
    6. Satya R. Chakravarty, 2009. "Deprivation, Inequality And Welfare," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 60(2), pages 172-190, June.
    7. Walter Bossert & William Schworm, 2008. "A Class of Two‐Group Polarization Measures," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(6), pages 1169-1187, December.
    8. Juan Prieto-Rodríguez & Juan Gabriel Rodríguez & Rafael Salas, "undated". "Interactions Inequality-Polarization: Characterization Results(*)," Working Papers 15-05 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    9. Alain Chateauneuf & Patrick Moyes, 2005. "Lorenz non-consistent welfare and inequality measurement," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(2), pages 61-87, January.
    10. Alain Chateauneuf & Patrick Moyes, 2002. "Measuring inequality without the Pigou-Dalton condition," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00156475, HAL.
    11. Chiara Assunta Ricci & Sergio Scicchitano, 2021. "Decomposing changes in income polarization by population group: what happened during the crisis?," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(1), pages 235-259, April.
    12. Satya Chakravarty & Bhargav Maharaj, 2012. "Ethnic polarization orderings and indices," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 7(1), pages 99-123, May.
    13. Paolo Verme, 2011. "Two Classes of Generalized Deprivation Indexes," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2021-2029.
    14. F. Clementi & A. L. Dabalen & V. Molini & F. Schettino, 2017. "When the Centre Cannot Hold: Patterns of Polarization in Nigeria," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 608-632, December.
    15. Chiara Gigliarano & Daniel Nowak & Karl Mosler, 2019. "A Polarization Index for Overlapping Groups," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 712-735, December.
    16. Iñaki Permanyer, 2012. "The conceptualization and measurement of social polarization," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 45-74, March.
    17. Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2010. "Polarization Orderings Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 47-64, March.
    18. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2022. "A synthesis of local and effective tax progressivity measurement," MPRA Paper 115180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2005. "A Comparison of Polarization Measures," Working Papers 310, Barcelona School of Economics.
    20. Schettino, Francesco & Khan, Haider A., 2020. "Income polarization in the USA: What happened to the middle class in the last few decades?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 149-161.

    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:isu:genres:12811. 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: Curtis Balmer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deiasus.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.