The paper provides an axiomatization of linear inequality measures as a representation of a binary relation on the subspace of income profiles having the same total income. Interpreting the binary relation as a preferences (of, say, a policymaker), we extend the axioms to the whole space of income profiles, and find that they characterize linear social evaluation functions. The axiomatiziation seems to suggest that a policymaker who has a linear measure of inequality on a subspace should have a linear evaluation on the whole space. In particular, we find that an extension of the preferences reflected in the Gini index to the whole space is represented by a linear combination of total income and the Gini index.
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Paper provided by Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science in its series Discussion Papers with number
944.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 1991 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:944
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