Abstract
The aim of this paper is to help readers understand the significance of the Gini coefficient. We have two major formulae for the Gini coefficient. One of the formulae bases on the idea of aggregation of the microscopic differences between individuals' incomes or wealth. The idea that underlies the other formula is macroscopic presentation of distribution or concentration of income or wealth. We will show an unabridged proof of the equivalence between these formulae to examine how the two conceptions of the measurement of inequality are linked to each other.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allison, Paul D. (1978). Measures of Inequality,American Sociological Review 43(6): 865–880.
Aoki, Masahiko (1979).Bunpai Riron, 2nd ed. (Theories of Distribution of Income and Wealth.) (in Japanese) Tokyo: Chikuma-shobo.
Atkinson, Anthony B. (1970). On the Measurement of Inequality,Journal of Economic Theory 2(3): 244–263.
Blau, Peter M. (1977).Inequality and Heterogeneity: A Primitive Theory of Social Structure, New York: Free Press.
Coulter, Philip B. (1989).Measuring Inequality: A Methodological Handbook, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Dalton, Hugh (1920). The Measurement of the Inequality of Incomes,Economic Journal 30(3): 348–361.
Gini, Corrado (1912).Variabilità e Mutabilità: Contributo allo studio dette distribuzioni e delle relazioni statistiche, Bologna: Tipografia di Paolo Cuppini.
Gini, Corrado (1914). Sulla misura della concentrazione e della variabilità dei caratteri,Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Anno accademico 1913–1914. 73 (Parte seconda): 1203–1248.
Gini, Corrado (1936). On the Measure of Concentration with Special Reference to Income and Wealth, pp. 73–80 inAbstracts of Papers presented at the Cowles Commission Research conference on economics and statistics. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Press.
Kendall, Maurice G. and Alan Stuart (1963).The Advanced Theory of Statistics, Vol. 1,Distribution Theory, 2nd ed. London: Charles Griffin.
Lorenz, Max O. (1905). Methods of Measuring the Concentration of Wealth,Publications of the American Statistical Association 9: 209–219.
Rawls, John (1971).A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Saeki, Yutaka (1980).‘Kime-kata’ no Ronri (The Logic of Decision Procedures) (in Japanese). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Schwartz, Joseph and Christopher Winship (1979). The Welfare Approach to Measuring Inequality, pp. 1–36 inSociological Methodology 1980, edited by Karl F. Schuessler. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Sen, Amartya (1973).On Economic Inequality, New York: W. W. Norton.
Sen, Amartya (1976). Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement,Econometrica 44(2): 219–231.
Sheshinski, Eytan (1972). Relation Between a Social Welfare Function and the Gini Index of Income Inequality,Journal of Economic Theory 4(1): 98–100.
Taagepera, Rein and James Lee Ray (1977). A Generalized Index of Concentration,Sociological Methods and Research 5(3): 367–384.
Takayama, Noriyuki (1979). Poverty, Income Inequality, and Their Measures: Professor Sen's Axiomatic Approach Reconsidered,Econometrica 47(3): 747–759.
Takayama, Noriyuki (1980).Fubyodo no Keizai Bunseki (An Economic Analysis of Inequality) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Toyo-Keizai-Shinpo-sha.
Theil, Henri (1967).Economics and Information Theory, Chicago: Rand McNally.
Umino, Michio (1986). Multi-level Analysis: A Review on the Mathematical Approaches to Micro-Macro Problems (in Japanese),Riron to Hoho (Sociological Theory and Methods) 1(1): 25–40.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kimura, K. A micro-macro linkage in the measurement of inequality: Another look at the Gini coefficient. Qual Quant 28, 83–97 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01098727
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01098727