IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/lacicr/0341.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bi-Polarization Comparisons

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-Yves Duclos
  • Damien Echevin

Abstract

This note provides simple tests for first-order bi-polarization orderings of distributions of living standards. In doing so, the paper also offers an ethical basis and an interpretation for the common use of some simple measures of distances from the median. Illustrations using Luxembourg Income Study data show that several countries can be ranked by such tests of bi-polarization.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Yves Duclos & Damien Echevin, 2003. "Bi-Polarization Comparisons," Cahiers de recherche 0341, CIRPEE.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0341
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirpee.org/fileadmin/documents/Cahiers_2003/CIRPEE03-41.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    2. Wolfson, Michael C, 1994. "When Inequalities Diverge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 353-358, May.
    3. Jenkins, Stephen P., 1995. "Did the middle class shrink during the 1980s? UK evidence from kernel density estimates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 407-413, October.
    4. James Foster & Michael Wolfson, 2010. "Polarization and the decline of the middle class: Canada and the U.S," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 247-273, June.
    5. Satya R. Chakravarty & Amita Majumder, 2001. "Inequality, Polarisation and Welfare: Theory and Applications," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 1-13, March.
    6. Jean-Yves Duclos & Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2004. "Polarization: Concepts, Measurement, Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1737-1772, November.
    7. You‐Qiang Wang & Kai‐Yuen Tsui, 2000. "Polarization Orderings and New Classes of Polarization Indices," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 2(3), pages 349-363, July.
    8. Wang, You-Qiang & Tsui, Kai-Yuen, 2000. "Polarization Orderings and New Classes of Polarization Indices," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 2(3), pages 349-363.
    9. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1999. "Conflict and Distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 379-415, August.
    10. X. Zhang & R. Kanbur, 2001. "What Difference Do Polarisation Measures Make? An Application to China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 85-98.
    11. Joe C. Davis & John H. Huston, 1992. "The Shrinking Middle-Income Class: A Multivariate Analysis," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 277-285, Summer.
    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. Servaas van der Berg & Ronelle Burger & Megan Louw, 2007. "Post-Apartheid South Africa: Poverty and Distribution Trends in an Era of Globalization," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2007-57, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Abdelkrim Araar, 2012. "Expected Poverty Changes with Economic Growth and Redistribution," Cahiers de recherche 1222, CIRPEE.
    3. Ma Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Henar Díez, 2010. "Unit Consistency And Bipolarization Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 65-83, March.
    4. Abdelkrim Araar & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2007. "Poverty and Inequality Components: a Micro Framework," Cahiers de recherche 0735, CIRPEE.
    5. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2004. "Measuring polarization, inequality, welfare and poverty," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/75, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    6. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2015. "A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 422-439, September.
    7. Ngunza Maniata, Kevin, 2014. "Analyse de la polarisation des dépenses des ménages en République Démocratique du Congo : application des modèles FW et DER [Household expenditure polarization analysis in Democratic Republic of Co," MPRA Paper 68482, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 13 Jul 2015.
    8. Damien Echevin, 2008. "Social polarization vs income polarization: An international comparison," Cahiers de recherche 08-02, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    9. Peter Lambert, 2010. "James Foster and Michael Wolfson’s 1992 paper “Polarization and the decline of the middle class”," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 241-245, June.
    10. Jude Okechukwu Chukwu, 2017. "Estimating Inequality Semi-elasticity of Poverty Reduction in Nigeria," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1087-1101, April.

    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. Fabio Clementi & Francesco Schettino, 2013. "Income polarization in Brazil, 2001-2011: A distributional analysis using PNAD data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 1796-1815.
    2. Chiara Assunta Ricci & Sergio Scicchitano, 2021. "Decomposing changes in income polarization by population group: what happened during the crisis?," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(1), pages 235-259, April.
    3. Satya Chakravarty & Bhargav Maharaj, 2012. "Ethnic polarization orderings and indices," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 7(1), pages 99-123, May.
    4. Ma Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Henar Díez, 2010. "Unit Consistency And Bipolarization Of Income Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 65-83, March.
    5. F. Clementi & A. L. Dabalen & V. Molini & F. Schettino, 2017. "When the Centre Cannot Hold: Patterns of Polarization in Nigeria," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 608-632, December.
    6. Michal Brzezinski, 2013. "Income polarization and economic growth," Working Papers 296, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2005. "A Comparison of Polarization Measures," Working Papers 310, Barcelona School of Economics.
    8. Walter Bossert & William Schworm, 2008. "A Class of Two‐Group Polarization Measures," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(6), pages 1169-1187, December.
    9. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2015. "A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 422-439, September.
    10. Marta Pascual & David Cantarero & Paloma Lanza, 2018. "Health polarization and inequalities across Europe: an empirical approach," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(8), pages 1039-1051, November.
    11. Mohammad Hussain, 2009. "The sensitivity of income polarization," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(3), pages 207-223, September.
    12. Chiara Gigliarano & Karl Mosler, 2009. "Constructing indices of multivariate polarization," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(4), pages 435-460, December.
    13. Schettino, Francesco & Gabriele, Alberto & Khan, Haider A., 2021. "Polarization and the middle class in China: A non-parametric evaluation using CHNS and CHIP data," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 251-264.
    14. Iñaki Permanyer, 2012. "The conceptualization and measurement of social polarization," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 45-74, March.
    15. Tanzhe Tang & Amineh Ghorbani & Flaminio Squazzoni & Caspar G. Chorus, 2022. "Together alone: a group-based polarization measurement," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3587-3619, October.
    16. Mariateresa Ciommi & Chiara Gigliarano & Giovanni Maria Giorgi, 2019. "Bonferroni And De Vergottini Are Back: New Subgroup Decompositions And Bipolarization Measures," Working Papers 439, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    17. Maria Livia ŞTEFĂNESCU, 2015. "Analyzing the health status of the population using ordinal data," Computational Methods in Social Sciences (CMSS), "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 3(1), pages 18-24, June.
    18. Ilaria Petrarca & Roberto Ricciuti, 2015. "Relative income distribution in six European countries: market and disposable income," LIS Working papers 629, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    19. Schettino, Francesco & Khan, Haider A., 2020. "Income polarization in the USA: What happened to the middle class in the last few decades?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 149-161.
    20. Jean-Yves Duclos & Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2004. "Polarization: Concepts, Measurement, Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1737-1772, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Polarization; inequality; stochastic dominance; relative poverty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lvl:lacicr:0341. 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: Manuel Paradis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cirpeca.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.