IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v15y2008i13p1041-1045.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cross-country inequalities in welfare and its decomposition by Sen factors: the virtues of the Theil index

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Antonio Duro

Abstract

In this study a new decomposition of the Theil index is proposed using multiplicative factors, which improves on that suggested in Duro (2001), and that, in particular, makes it possible to obtain, in isolation, the role attributable to the elements of factorial correlation. The Theil index, as a referential index in analysis, seems more attractive to us than log variance (Ezcurra and Pascual, 2005) for a variety of reasons. The application of the said decomposition for the analysis of international inequalities in terms of welfare levels, taking the Sen's factors (Sen, 1974, 1976), demonstrates that the bulk of these are determined by disparities in income per capita as well as their recent decrease.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Antonio Duro, 2008. "Cross-country inequalities in welfare and its decomposition by Sen factors: the virtues of the Theil index," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(13), pages 1041-1045.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:15:y:2008:i:13:p:1041-1045
    DOI: 10.1080/13504850600993507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/13504850600993507&magic=repec&7C&7C8674ECAB8BB840C6AD35DC6213A474B5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504850600993507?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laszlo Matyas & Laszlo Konya & Lachlan MaCquarie, 1998. "The Kuznets U-curve hypothesis: some panel data evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(11), pages 693-697.
    2. Amartya Sen, 1976. "Real National Income," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(1), pages 19-39.
    3. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    4. P. J. Dawson, 1997. "On testing Kuznets' economic growth hypothesis," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(7), pages 409-410.
    5. Juan Antonio Duro Moreno, 2001. "Cross-country inequalities in aggregate welfare: some evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(6), pages 403-406.
    6. Carola Grün & Stephan Klasen, 2003. "Growth, Inequality and Well-Being: Comparisons across Space and Time," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 094, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Sen, Amartya, 1974. "Informational bases of alternative welfare approaches : Aggregation and income distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 387-403, November.
    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. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Vassilis Tselios, 2015. "Toward Inclusive Growth," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 38(1), pages 30-60, January.
    2. Alex Cobham & Lukas Schlögl & Andy Sumner, 2016. "Inequality and the Tails: the Palma Proposition and Ratio," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7(1), pages 25-36, February.
    3. Alex Cobham & Andrew Sumner, 2013. "Is it all about the tails? The Palma measure of income inequality," Working Papers 308, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Alex Cobham, Andy Sumner, 2013. "Is It All About the Tails? The Palma Measure of Income Inequality-Working Paper 343," Working Papers 343, Center for Global Development.
    5. Wu, Dengsheng & Yuan, Lili & Li, Ruoyun & Li, Jianping, 2018. "Decomposing inequality in research funding by university-institute sub-group: A three-stage nested Theil index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1312-1326.
    6. Alex Cobham & Luke Schlogl & Andy Sumner, 2015. "Inequality and the Tails: The Palma Proposition and Ratio Revisited," Working Papers 143, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.

    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. Alvargonzalez, M. & Lopez, A. & Perez, R., 2004. "Growth-Inequality Relationship. An Analytical Approach and Some Evidence for Latin America," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 4(2).
    2. Roberto Ezcurra & Pedro Pascual, 2005. "Cross-country disparities in welfare, 1970-1998," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 41-44.
    3. Jalil, Mohammad Muaz, 2009. "Re-examining Kuznets Hypothesis: Does Data Matter?," MPRA Paper 72557, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Juan Antonio Duro Moreno, 2001. "Cross-country inequalities in aggregate welfare: some evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(6), pages 403-406.
    5. Nicole Palan, 2010. "Measurement of Specialization – The Choice of Indices," FIW Working Paper series 062, FIW.
    6. Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 1994. "A complete model for welfare analysis," UC3M Working papers. Economics 2907, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    7. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2011. "Household inequality, social welfare, and trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 422-431, November.
    8. Sergii Slukhai & Tetiana Borshchenko, 2019. "Social welfare dynamics in post-socialist countries: unveiling the secrets of success," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(2), pages 167-194.
    9. Perdamen Sagala & Takahiro Akita & Arief Yusuf, 2014. "Urbanization and expenditure inequality in Indonesia: testing the Kuznets hypothesis with provincial panel data," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 133-147, October.
    10. Nanak Kakwani & Xiaobing Wang & Jing Xu & Ximing Yue, 2020. "Assessing the Social Welfare Effects of Government Transfer Programs: Some International Comparisons," LIS Working papers 786, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. John Michael, Riveros-Gavilanes, 2020. "Estimating the Social Welfare Function of Amartya Sen for Latin America," MPRA Paper 111268, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Feb 2021.
    12. Takahiro Akita, 2024. "Urbanization and Income Inequality," Working Papers EMS_2024_01, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    13. Aaberge, Rolf & Havnes, Tarjei & Mogstad, Magne, 2013. "A Theory for Ranking Distribution Functions," IZA Discussion Papers 7738, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Ebert, Udo, 2010. "The decomposition of inequality reconsidered: Weakly decomposable measures," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 94-103, September.
    15. Ulrich Schmidt & Philipp C. Wichardt, 2019. "Inequity aversion, welfare measurement and the Gini index," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(3), pages 585-588, March.
    16. Joseph Francois & Hugo Rojas-Romagosa, 2007. "Equity and Trade Policy," IIDE Discussion Papers 20070501, Institue for International and Development Economics.
    17. Ugo Colombino, 2011. "Five issues in the design of income support mechanisms. The case of Italy," CHILD Working Papers wp21_11, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    18. Ying Zhang & Xiaoxing Liu & Jiaxin Xu & Rui Wang, 2017. "Does military spending promote social welfare? A comparative analysis of the BRICS and G7 countries," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(6), pages 686-702, November.
    19. Joseph Francois & Hugo Rojas-Romagosa, 2004. "Household Inequality, Welfare, and the Setting of Trade Policy," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-086/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    20. Anthony B. Atkinson & Andrea Brandolini, 2010. "On Analyzing the World Distribution of Income," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 24(1), pages 1-37, January.

    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:taf:apeclt:v:15:y:2008:i:13:p:1041-1045. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.