IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/cudawp/127237.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Policy Significance of Inequality Decompositions

Author

Listed:
  • Kanbur, Ravi

Abstract

Economists are now familiar with “between” and “within” group inequality decompositions, for race, gender, spatial units, etc. But what exactly is the normative significance of the empirical results produced by these decompositions? This paper raises some basic questions about policy interpretations of decompositions that are found in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Kanbur, Ravi, 2003. "The Policy Significance of Inequality Decompositions," Working Papers 127237, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:cudawp:127237
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.127237
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/127237/files/Cornell_Dyson_wp0326.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.127237?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Sattinger (ed.), 2001. "Income Distribution," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 2018.
    2. Xiaobo Zhang & Kevin Honglin Zhang, 2002. "Regional Inequality," Chapters, in: Shang-Jin Wei & Guanzhong James Wen & Huizhong Zhou (ed.), The Globalization of the Chinese Economy, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Kanbur, Ravi, 2000. "Income distribution and development," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 791-841, Elsevier.
    4. Au, Chun-Chung & Henderson, J. Vernon, 2006. "How migration restrictions limit agglomeration and productivity in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 350-388, August.
    5. Christopher B. Barrett & Michael R. Carter & Jean-Paul Chavas, 2018. "The Economics of Poverty Traps," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number barr-3.
    6. Masahisa Fujita & Paul Krugman & Anthony J. Venables, 2001. "The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262561476, April.
    7. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    8. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    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. Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2001. "Fifty Years Of Regional Inequality In China: A Journey Through Revolution, Reform And Openness," Working Papers 7236, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    2. Ravi Kanbur & Xiaobo Zhang, 2005. "Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: a Journey Through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 87-106, February.
    3. Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, 2002. "How Workers Get Poor Because Capitalists Get Rich: A General Equilibrium Model of Labor Supply, Community, and the Class Distribution of Income," Working Papers 127296, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    4. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    5. Michael Storper & Anthony J. Venables, 2004. "Buzz: face-to-face contact and the urban economy," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 351-370, August.
    6. Xiaosu Ye & Lie Ma & Kunhui Ye & Jiantao Chen & Qiu Xie, 2017. "Analysis of Regional Inequality from Sectoral Structure, Spatial Policy and Economic Development: A Case Study of Chongqing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-17, April.
    7. Julio Huato, 2023. "Inequality and Growth: A Two-Player Dynamic Game with Production and Appropriation," Papers 2304.01855, arXiv.org.
    8. Chun-Yu Ho & Dan Li, 2009. "The nexus of income and size distribution of Chinese cities, 1984-2003," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(17), pages 1677-1682.
    9. Stephen P. Jenkins & John Micklewright, 2007. "New Directions in the Analysis of Inequality and Poverty," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 700, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Ji-Won Park & Chae Un Kim, 2021. "Getting to a feasible income equality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-16, March.
    11. Deeptha Wijerathna & Jayatilleke S. Bandara & Christine Smith & Athula Naranpanawa, 2014. "Regional disparities in Sri Lanka: an empirical analysis," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 21(2), pages 77-102, December.
    12. Ananya Ghosh Dastidar, 2004. "Structural Change and Income Distribution in Developing Economies: Evidence from a Group of Asian and Latin American Countries," Working papers 121, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    13. Wei Zou & Yong Liu, 2010. "Skilled Labor, Economic Transition and Income Differences: A Dynamic Approach," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 11(2), pages 247-275, November.
    14. Gilles Duranton, 2007. "From cities to productivity and growth in developing countries," Working Papers tecipa-306, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    15. Chris Elbers & Peter Lanjouw & Johan Mistiaen & Berk Özler, 2008. "Reinterpreting between-group inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(3), pages 231-245, September.
    16. L. Alan Winters & Shahid Yusuf, 2007. "Dancing with the Giants: China, India, and the Global Economy," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6632.
    17. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00906152 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Kaushik Basu, 2016. "Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9299.
    19. Chris Elbers & Peter Lanjouw & Johan A. Mistiaen & Berk Özler & Kenneth Simler, 2003. "Are Neighbours Equal? Estimating Local Inequality in Three Developing Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-52, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2007. "Staticide - America's Suicidal Healthcare Status Quo," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-014, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    21. Qinghua Zhang & Heng-fu Zou, 2012. "Regional Inequality in Contemporary China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 13(1), pages 113-137, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy;

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    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:ags:cudawp:127237. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dacorus.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.