When measuring health inequality using ordinal data, analysts typically must choose between indices specifically based upon ordinal data and more standard indices using ordinal data which has been transformed into cardinal data. This paper compares inequality rankings across a number of different approaches and finds considerable sensitivity to the choice between ordinal and cardinal based indices. There is relatively little sensitivity to the ethical choices made by the analyst in terms of the weight attached to different parts of the distribution.
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Paper provided by School Of Economics, University College Dublin in its series Working Papers with number
200813.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare
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