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The Measurement of Social Polarization in a Multi-group Context

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  • Iñaki Permanyer

Abstract

Polarization indices presented up to now have only focused their attention on the distribution of income/wealth. However, in many circumstances income is not the only relevant dimension that might be the cause of social conflict, so it is very important to have a social polarization index able to cope with alternative dimensions. In this paper we present an axiomatic characterization of one of such indices: it has been obtained as an extension of the (income) polarization measure introduced in Duclos, Esteban and Ray (2004) to a wider domain. It turns out that the axiomatic structure introduced in that paper alone is not appropriate to obtain a fully satisfactory characterization of our measure, so additional axioms are proposed. As a byproduct, we present an alternative axiomatization of the aforementioned income polarization measure.

Suggested Citation

  • Iñaki Permanyer, 2008. "The Measurement of Social Polarization in a Multi-group Context," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 736.08, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    • Handle: RePEc:aub:autbar:736.08
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    Cited by:

    1. Iñaki Permanyer, 2008. "Social Polarization: Introducing distances between and within groups," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 751.08, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).

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