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Permutation Tests for Comparing Inequality Measures

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  • Jean-Marie Dufour
  • Emmanuel Flachaire
  • Lynda Khalaf

Abstract

Asymptotic and bootstrap tests for inequality measures are known to perform poorly in finite samples when the underlying distribution is heavy-tailed. We propose Monte Carlo permutation and bootstrap methods for the problem of testing the equality of inequality measures between two samples. Results cover the Generalized Entropy class, which includes Theil’s index, the Atkinson class of indices, and the Gini index. We analyze finite-sample and asymptotic conditions for the validity of the proposed methods, and we introduce a convenient rescaling to improve finite-sample performance. Simulation results show that size correct inference can be obtained with our proposed methods despite heavy tails if the underlying distributions are sufficiently close in the upper tails. Substantial reduction in size distortion is achieved more generally. Studentized rescaled Monte Carlo permutation tests outperform the competing methods we consider in terms of power.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Marie Dufour & Emmanuel Flachaire & Lynda Khalaf, 2019. "Permutation Tests for Comparing Inequality Measures," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 457-470, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jnlbes:v:37:y:2019:i:3:p:457-470
    DOI: 10.1080/07350015.2017.1371027
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    Cited by:

    1. Meng Yuan & Chunlin Wang & Boxi Lin & Pengfei Li, 2022. "Semiparametric inference on general functionals of two semicontinuous populations," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 74(3), pages 451-472, June.
    2. Jean-Marie Dufour & Emmanuel Flachaire & Lynda Khalaf & Abdallah Zalghout, 2020. "Identification-Robust Inequality Analysis," Cahiers de recherche 03-2020, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    3. Purevdorj Tuvaandorj, 2021. "Robust Permutation Tests in Linear Instrumental Variables Regression," Papers 2111.13774, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    4. Kock, Anders Bredahl & Preinerstorfer, David & Veliyev, Bezirgen, 2023. "Treatment recommendation with distributional targets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 624-646.
    5. Rustam Ibragimov & Paul Kattuman & Anton Skrobotov, 2021. "Robust Inference on Income Inequality: $t$-Statistic Based Approaches," Papers 2105.05335, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.

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