The Normative Approach to the Measurement of Multidimensional Inequality

This article provides an introduction to the normative approach to multidimensional inequality measurement. Multivariate generalizations of the procedures used to construct univariate inequality indices from social evaluation orderings are described. Axiomatizations of multivariate Atkinson, Kolm-Pollak, and generalized Gini indices are discussed. Maasoumi's Econometrica (1986) two-stage procedure for constructing a multivariate inequality index is critically examined. A dominance criterion proposed by Tsui Social Choice and Welfare (1999) that takes account of the dependence between the individual distributions of the attributes is also considered.