IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bas/econst/y2010i3p95-102.html

Lorenz Curve and the Measurement of Low, Middle and High Strata of Incomes

Author

Listed:
  • Tzvetan Ignatov
  • Tatyana S. Madjarova
  • Luben T. Toshkov

Abstract

The authors suggest a new method to determinate the limits of the three basic income groups. The Lorenz curve is split of three parts. The middle part corresponds to the middle stratum of incomes. The projections of this part on both axes are equal segments. The empirical Lorenz curve is transformed in new one with the same Gini coefficient. The transformed curve is composed by three segments with “clearly expressed the three strata of incomes”. The proposed model is used with some statistical data for the incomes and the wealth of the households in Bulgaria and Germany. The calculations are made with iterative methods in Microsoft Excel.

Suggested Citation

  • Tzvetan Ignatov & Tatyana S. Madjarova & Luben T. Toshkov, 2010. "Lorenz Curve and the Measurement of Low, Middle and High Strata of Incomes," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 95-102.
    • Handle: RePEc:bas:econst:y:2010:i:3:p:95-102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=3e8b0ec6-bf2c-46ce-bb63-f39936209187&articleid=3d54f962-fc5d-44fd-b368-edce59da7839#a3d54f962-fc5d-44fd-b368-edce59da7839
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dorfman, Robert, 1979. "A Formula for the Gini Coefficient," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(1), pages 146-149, February.
    2. Hagerbaumer, James B, 1977. "The Gini Concentration Ratio and the Minor Concentration Ratio: A Two-Parameter Index of Inequality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 59(3), pages 377-379, August.
    3. Fellman, J, 1976. "The Effect of Transformations on Lorenz Curves," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 823-824, July.
    4. Stefan Bach & Giacomo Corneo & Viktor Steiner, 2009. "From Bottom To Top: The Entire Income Distribution In Germany, 1992–2003," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(2), pages 303-330, June.
    5. Markus M. Grabka & Joachim R. Frick, 2008. "Schrumpfende Mittelschicht: Anzeichen einer dauerhaften Polarisierung der verfügbaren Einkommen?," DIW Wochenbericht, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 75(10), pages 101-108.
    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. Louis de Mesnard, 1997. "About the problems caused by the Gini and Kakwani index of inequality measurement [A propos des problèmes causés par les indices de mesure d'inégalité de Gini et de Kakwani]," Working Papers hal-01527267, HAL.
    2. van Treeck, Till. & Sturn, Simon., 2012. "Income inequality as a cause of the Great Recession? : A survey of current debates," ILO Working Papers 994709343402676, International Labour Organization.
    3. Guo Chen & Amy K Glasmeier & Min Zhang & Yang Shao, 2016. "Urbanization and Income Inequality in Post-Reform China: A Causal Analysis Based on Time Series Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, July.
    4. Hang Wan & Jiaqi Gao & Michael David & William Derigent & Haiyan Zhao & Yufang Chang, 2025. "An energy-aware clustering approach based on Gini coefficient and IPSO applied for energy-constrained applications," Telecommunication Systems: Modelling, Analysis, Design and Management, Springer, vol. 88(2), pages 1-16, June.
    5. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2012. "On the Measurement of Indignation," Working Papers 1213E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    6. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2022. "A synthesis of local and effective tax progressivity measurement," MPRA Paper 115180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Werner Eichhorst, 2015. "The Unexpected Appearance of a New German Model," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 49-69, March.
    8. Davide Donato Russo & Frida Milella & Giuseppe Di Felice, 2025. "Fairness in Healthcare Services for Italian Older People: A Convolution-Based Evaluation to Support Policy Decision Makers," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-17, April.
    9. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Llavador, Humberto, 2018. "Inequality reducing properties of progressive income tax schedules: the case of endogenous income," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    10. Saqalli, M. & Gérard, B. & Bielders, C.L. & Defourny, P., 2011. "Targeting rural development interventions: Empirical agent-based modeling in Nigerien villages," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(4), pages 354-364, April.
    11. Johannes König & Christian Schluter & Carsten Schröder, 2025. "Routes to the Top," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 71(2), May.
    12. Sun, Xiaotong & Stasinakis, Charalampos & Sermpinis, Georgios, 2024. "Decentralization illusion in Decentralized Finance: Evidence from tokenized voting in MakerDAO polls," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Andreas Peichl & Nico Pestel & Sebastian Siegloch, 2013. "The politicians’ wage gap: insights from German members of parliament," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 653-676, September.
    14. Alexander Silbersdorff & Kai Sebastian Schneider, 2019. "Distributional Regression Techniques in Socioeconomic Research on the Inequality of Health with an Application on the Relationship between Mental Health and Income," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-28, October.
    15. Baydil, Banu & de la Peña, Victor H. & Zou, Haolin & Yao, Heyuan, 2025. "Unbiased estimation of the Gini coefficient," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    16. Saqalli, M. & Gérard, B. & Bielders, C. & Defourny, P., 2010. "Testing the impact of social forces on the evolution of Sahelian farming systems: A combined agent-based modeling and anthropological approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(22), pages 2714-2727.
    17. Petra Duenhaupt, 2011. "The Impact of Financialization on Income Distribution in the USA and Germany: A Proposal for a New Adjusted Wage Share," IMK Working Paper 7-2011, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    18. Kroh Tanja, 2016. "Wie wirken Steuern auf die Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung?," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 022-046, May.
    19. Nicola Fuchs-Schuendeln & Dirk Krueger & Mathias Sommer, 2010. "Inequality Trends for Germany in the Last Two Decades: A Tale of Two Countries," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 103-132, January.
    20. Sang T. Truong & Humberto Barreto, 2023. "Teaching Income Inequality with Data-Driven Visualization," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 68(1), pages 140-155, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • C46 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Specific Distributions
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

    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:bas:econst:y:2010:i:3:p:95-102. 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: Diana Dimitrova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ikbasbg.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.