IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2011.09119.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Getting to a feasible income equality

Author

Listed:
  • Ji-Won Park
  • Chae Un Kim

Abstract

Income inequality is known to have negative impacts on an economic system, thus has been debated for a hundred years past or more. Numerous ideas have been proposed to quantify income inequality, and the Gini coefficient is a prevalent index. However, the concept of perfect equality in the Gini coefficient is rather idealistic and cannot provide realistic guidance on whether government interventions are needed to adjust income inequality. In this paper, we first propose the concept of a more realistic and feasible income equality that maximizes total social welfare. Then we show that an optimal income distribution representing the feasible equality could be modeled using the sigmoid welfare function and the Boltzmann income distribution. Finally, we carry out an empirical analysis of four countries and demonstrate how optimal income distributions could be evaluated. Our results show that the feasible income equality could be used as a practical guideline for government policies and interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ji-Won Park & Chae Un Kim, 2020. "Getting to a feasible income equality," Papers 2011.09119, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2011.09119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.09119
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravi Kanbur & Andy Snell, 2019. "Inequality Indices as Tests of Fairness," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2216-2239.
    2. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    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. Magdalou, Brice & Nock, Richard, 2011. "Income distributions and decomposable divergence measures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2440-2454.
    5. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    6. Paul Hufe & Ravi Kanbur & Andreas Peichlifo, 2022. "Measuring Unfair Inequality: Reconciling Equality of Opportunity and Freedom from Poverty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 3345-3380.
    7. Amartya K. Sen, 1997. "From Income Inequality to Economic Inequality," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 384-401, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Matthew Smith & Danny Yagan & Owen Zidar & Eric Zwick, 2019. "Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 1675-1745.
    10. Park, Ji-Won & Kim, Chae Un & Isard, Walter, 2012. "Permit allocation in emissions trading using the Boltzmann distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(20), pages 4883-4890.
    11. Martin Ravallion, 2004. "The Debate on Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: why Measurement Matters," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    12. Anand Banerjee & Victor M. Yakovenko, 2009. "Universal patterns of inequality," Papers 0912.4898, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2010.
    13. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    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. Thomas Goda, 2013. "The role of income inequality in crisis theories and in the subprime crisis," Working Papers PKWP1305, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    16. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    17. Palma, J.G., 2011. "Homogeneous middles vs. heterogeneous tails, and the end of the ‘Inverted-U’: the share of the rich is what it's all about," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1111, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Ji-Won Park & Chae Un Kim & Walter Isard, 2011. "Permit Allocation in Emissions Trading using the Boltzmann Distribution," Papers 1108.2305, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2012.
    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. Ji-Won Park & Jaeup U. Kim & Cheol-Min Ghim & Chae Un Kim, 2021. "The Boltzmann fair division for distributive justice," Papers 2109.11917, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    2. Djehiche, Boualem & Gozzi, Fausto & Zanco, Giovanni & Zanella, Margherita, 2022. "Optimal portfolio choice with path dependent benchmarked labor income: A mean field model," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 48-85.
    3. Yiguo Shen & Xiaojie Chen & Qingxin Yao & Jiahui Ding & Yuhan Lai & Yongheng Rao, 2023. "Examining the Impact of China’s Poverty Alleviation on Nighttime Lighting in 831 State-Level Impoverished Counties," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-17, May.
    4. Balisacan, Arsenio M. & dela Cruz, Russel Matthew M., 2021. "When a Pandemic Strikes: Balancing Health and Economy toward Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery," MPRA Paper 111259, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. 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.
    2. Ji-Won Park & Jaeup U. Kim & Cheol-Min Ghim & Chae Un Kim, 2021. "The Boltzmann fair division for distributive justice," Papers 2109.11917, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    3. 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.
    4. 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).
    5. Elbers, Chris & Lanjouw, Peter & Mistiaen, Johan & Özler, Berk & Simler, Kenneth, 2003. "Are neighbors equal?," FCND discussion papers 147, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
      • Elbers, Chris & Lanjouw, Peter & Mistiaen, Johan & Özler, Berk & Simler, Kenneth, 2003. "Are neighbors equal?," FCND briefs 147, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Elbers, Chris & Lanjouw, Peter & Mistiaen, Johan A. & Ozler, Berk, 2005. "Re-interpreting sub-group inequality decompositions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3687, The World Bank.
    7. 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.
    8. Frank Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire, 2021. "Inequality Measurement: Methods and Data," Post-Print hal-03589066, HAL.
    9. Céline Guivarch & Nicolas Taconet, 2020. "Inégalités mondiales et changement climatique," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 35-70.
    10. Sam Harper & Eric Ruder & Henry A. Roman & Amelia Geggel & Onyemaechi Nweke & Devon Payne-Sturges & Jonathan I. Levy, 2013. "Using Inequality Measures to Incorporate Environmental Justice into Regulatory Analyses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-21, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Takahiro Akita, 2024. "Urbanization and Income Inequality," Working Papers EMS_2024_01, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    13. 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.
    14. Ravallion, Martin, 2020. "Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 1: Inequality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    15. Qu, Xiangyu, 2022. "On the measurement of opportunity-dependent inequality under uncertainty," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    16. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "A Review of Decomposition of Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1221, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Díaz, Juan D. & Gutiérrez Cubillos, Pablo & Tapia Griñen, Pablo, 2021. "The exponential Pareto model with hidden income processes: Evidence from Chile," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 561(C).
    18. Frank A Cowell, 2003. "Theil, Inequality and the Structure of Income Distribution," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 67, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    19. Dennis Fixler & Marina Gindelsky & David Johnson, 2020. "Measuring Inequality in the National Accounts," BEA Working Papers 0175, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    20. Francisco Cardoso, Ben-Hur & Gonçalves, Sebastián & Iglesias, José Roberto, 2023. "Why equal opportunities lead to maximum inequality? The wealth condensation paradox generally solved," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    More about this item

    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:arx:papers:2011.09119. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.