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Better Off or More Apart? Empirically Testing Welfare and Inequality Dominance Criteria

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  • Charles Beach

Abstract

This paper provides the tools and procedures for empirically implementing several dominance criteria for social welfare comparisons and broad income inequality comparisons. Dominance criteria are expressed in terms of vectors of quantile ordinates based on income shares or quantile means. Statistical properties of these sample ordinates are established that allow a framework for statistical inference on these vectors. And practical empirical criteria are forwarded for using formal statistical inference tests to reach conclusions about ranking social welfare and inequality between distributions. Examples include rank dominance, generalized Lorenz dominance, dominance with crossing Lorenz curves, and distributional distance dominance between income groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Beach, 2022. "Better Off or More Apart? Empirically Testing Welfare and Inequality Dominance Criteria," Working Paper 1484, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    • Handle: RePEc:qed:wpaper:1484
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    File URL: https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/wpaper/qed_wp_1484.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Beach & Russell Davidson & George A. Slotsve, 1994. "Distribution-Free Statistical Inference for Inequality Dominance with Crossing Lorenz Curves," Working Paper 912, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    2. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    3. Davies, James & Hoy, Michael, 1995. "Making Inequality Comparisons When Lorenz Curves Intersect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 980-986, September.
    4. Russell Davidson, 2018. "Statistical Inference on the Canadian Middle Class," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-18, March.
    5. Anthony F. Shorrocks & James E. Foster, 1987. "Transfer Sensitive Inequality Measures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(3), pages 485-497.
    6. 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.
    7. Facundo Alvaredo & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts," Post-Print halshs-03342488, HAL.
    8. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1983. "Ranking Income Distributions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(197), pages 3-17, February.
    9. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    10. Rubin Saposnik, 1981. "Rank-dominance in income distributions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 147-151, January.
    11. Jorgenson, Dale W, 1990. "Aggregate Consumer Behavior and the Measurement of Social Welfare," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1007-1040, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    welfare testing; inequality dominance; dominance testing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C46 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Specific Distributions
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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