IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/2288.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Theil, inequality and the structure of income distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Cowell, Frank

Abstract

Theil’s information-theoretic approach to the measurement of inequality (Theil 1967) is set in the context of subsequent developments over recent decades. It is shown that Theil’s initial insight leads naturally to a very general class of inequality measures. It is thus closely related to a number of other commonly used families of inequality measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Cowell, Frank, 2003. "Theil, inequality and the structure of income distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2288, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:2288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2288/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1973. "Some further results on the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 188-204, April.
    2. Bossert, Walter & Pfingsten, Andreas, 1990. "Intermediate inequality: concepts, indices, and welfare implications," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 117-134, April.
    3. Frank A. Cowell, 1980. "On the Structure of Additive Inequality Measures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(3), pages 521-531.
    4. Kolm, Serge-Christophe, 1976. "Unequal inequalities. II," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 82-111, August.
    5. Kolm, Serge-Christophe, 1976. "Unequal inequalities. I," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 416-442, June.
    6. Cowell, F.A., 2000. "Measurement of inequality," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 87-166, Elsevier.
    7. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1984. "Inequality Decomposition by Population Subgroups," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1369-1385, November.
    8. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-920, July.
    9. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    10. Frank A Cowell, 2006. "Inequality: Measurement," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 86, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    11. Cowell, Frank A. & Kuga, Kiyoshi, 1981. "Additivity and the entropy concept: An axiomatic approach to inequality measurement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 131-143, August.
    12. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    13. John C. Harsanyi, 1953. "Cardinal Utility in Welfare Economics and in the Theory of Risk-taking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61, pages 434-434.
    14. Cowell, Frank A., 1980. "Generalized entropy and the measurement of distributional change," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 147-159, January.
    15. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63, pages 309-309.
    16. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    17. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931, Decembrie.
    18. James E. Foster & Artyom A. Shneyerov, 1999. "A general class of additively decomposable inequality measures," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 14(1), pages 89-111.
    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. Saurabh Mishra & Bilal M. Ayyub, 2019. "Shannon Entropy for Quantifying Uncertainty and Risk in Economic Disparity," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(10), pages 2160-2181, October.
    2. Gine, Xavier, 2005. "Cultivate or rent out ? Land security in rural Thailand," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3734, The World Bank.
    3. Eduardo Michel Camacho & Willy W. Cortez, 2012. "Distribución del ingreso y bienestar social en México 1984-2008," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 27(2), pages 347-378.
    4. Sergio Firpo & Cristine Pinto, 2016. "Identification and Estimation of Distributional Impacts of Interventions Using Changes in Inequality Measures," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 457-486, April.
    5. Tudorel Andrei & Bogdan Oancea & Peter Richmond & Gurjeet Dhesi & Claudiu Herteliu, 2017. "Decomposition of the Inequality of Income Distribution by Income Types - Application for Romania," Papers 1709.07960, arXiv.org.
    6. Firpo, Sergio Pinheiro, 2010. "Identification and estimation of interventions using changes in inequality measures," Textos para discussão 214, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    7. Sulekha Hembram & Sushil Kr. Haldar, 2019. "Beta, sigma and club convergence: Indian experience from 1980 to 2015," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 343-366, December.
    8. Chen, Lei & Xu, Linyu & Yang, Zhifeng, 2019. "Inequality of industrial carbon emissions of the urban agglomeration and its peripheral cities: A case in the Pearl River Delta, China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 438-447.
    9. Sushil Kr. Haldar & Sulekha Hembram & Suraj Das, 2023. "Multidimensional Human Deprivation in India: Does Club Convergence Exist?," Millennial Asia, , vol. 14(2), pages 200-227, June.
    10. Aoki, Shuhei, 2008. "Aggregate Productivity Loss and the Theil Index of Inequality," MPRA Paper 7407, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Mbanda, Vandudzai & Bonga-Bonga, Lumengo, 2018. "CGE Microsimulation Analysis of Electricity Tariff Increases: The Case of South Africa," MPRA Paper 90120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Francesca Greselin & Ričardas Zitikis, 2018. "From the Classical Gini Index of Income Inequality to a New Zenga-Type Relative Measure of Risk: A Modeller’s Perspective," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, January.
    13. Lanjouw, P. & Marra, M.R., 2018. "Urban poverty across the spectrum of Vietnam’s towns and cities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 295-306.

    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. Frank Cowell, 2005. "Theil, Inequality Indices and Decomposition," Working Papers 01, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    2. Stéphane Mussard & Françoise Seyte & Michel Terraza, 2006. "La décomposition de l’indicateur de Gini en sous-groupes : une revue de la littérature," Cahiers de recherche 06-11, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    3. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia, 2008. "The ‘Extended’ Atkinson family: The class of multiplicatively decomposable inequality measures, and some new graphical procedures for analysts," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(2), pages 211-225, June.
    4. James E. Foster & Joel Greer & Erik Thorbecke, 2010. "The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) Poverty Measures: Twenty-Five Years Later," Working Papers 2010-14, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    5. Stéphane Mussard & Michel Terraza, 2009. "Décompositions des mesures d'inégalité : le cas des coefficients de Gini et d'entropie," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 75(2), pages 151-181.
    6. Rodolfo Hoffmann & Diego Camargo Botassio, 2020. "Sensitivity of inequality measures considering regressive transfers with fixed relative income distance," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(3), pages 279-296, December.
    7. James Foster & Joel Greer & Erik Thorbecke, 2010. "The Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures: 25 years later," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 491-524, December.
    8. Teixidó Figueras, Jordi & Duro Moreno, Juan Antonio, 2012. "Ecological Footprint Inequality: A methodological review and some results," Working Papers 2072/203168, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    9. Satya R. Chakravarty & Pietro Muliere, 2003. "Welfare indicators: A review and new perspectives. 1. Measurement of inequality," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 457-497.
    10. Satya Chakravarty & Swami Tyagarupananda, 2009. "The subgroup decomposable intermediate indices of inequality," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 83-97, June.
    11. Foster, James E. & Shneyerov, Artyom A., 2000. "Path Independent Inequality Measures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 199-222, April.
    12. Brice Magdalou, 2018. "Income inequality measurement: a fresh look at two old issues," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(3), pages 415-435, October.
    13. Ebert U., 1996. "Income inequality and differences in household size," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 57-58, February.
    14. Francisco J. Goerlich-Gisbert & Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Marta Urrutia, 2009. "The ‘extended’ Atkinson family and changes in the expenditure distribution. Spain 1973/74-2003," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 18(1), pages 20-41, March.
    15. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Oscar Volij, 2013. "An axiomatic characterization of the Theil inequality ordering," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(3), pages 757-776, November.
    16. Nicholas Rohde, 2008. "A comparison of inequality measurement techniques," Discussion Papers Series 377, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    17. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Oscar Volij, 2011. "An Axiomatic Characterization Of The Theil Inequality Order," Working Papers 1103, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    18. Nicole Palan, 2010. "Measurement of Specialization – The Choice of Indices," FIW Working Paper series 062, FIW.
    19. Francesco Andreoli & Claudio Zoli, 2020. "From unidimensional to multidimensional inequality: a review," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(1), pages 5-42, April.
    20. Satya Chakravarty, 2001. "The Variance as a subgroup decomposable measure of inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 79-95, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Theil; inequality; independence; homotheticity; translatability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • 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:ehl:lserod:2288. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.