Should inequality comparisons with ordinal variables be sensitive to alternative sorting of the categories, i.e. ascending versus descending order? We introduce the consistency property whereby an inequality or bipolarisation index regards frequency distribution r less unequal than s if and only...

Most non-monetary development indicators are bounded and many of them are presented in terms of either attainments or shortfalls. Whether an absolute approach or a relative approach should be undertaken to assess cross-country convergence of these indicators has been a subject of debate....

An already extensive literature documents the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A nascent literature is also beginning to detail the mental health impact. A limitation with existing work is that reported findings generally cannot be taken as causal estimates. In this study, we use a...

As is well documented, the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic, with its concomitant lockdown measures, is associated with marked deterioration of mental health in many countries. Using a quasi-experimental design and drawing on several small-area indicators, we probe the potential moderating...

This paper documents the extent of inequality of educational opportunity in India spanning the period 1983-2004 using National Sample Survey (NSS) data. We build on recent developments in the literature that has operationalized concepts in the inequality of opportunity theory (including...

A long literature on inter-distributional inequality (IDI) has developed statistical tools for measuring the extent of inequality between two groups (e.g. men versus women). Firstly, I introduce the property of group-specific disadvantage focus (GDF). Indices satisfying this property are only...

The challenges associated with poverty measurement using a cardinal variable have received much attention over the past four decades, but there is a dearth of literature on how to meaningfully assess poverty with an ordinal variable. This article proposes a class of simple, intuitive, and...

The challenges associated with poverty measurement using a cardinal variable have received much attention over the past four decades, but there is a dearth of literature on how to meaningfully assess poverty with an ordinal variable. This article proposes a class of simple, intuitive, and...

We propose a framework for the measurement of income mobility over several time periods, based on the notion that multi-period mobility amounts to measuring the degree of association between the individuals and the time periods in a contingency table. We provide both indices and a pre-ordering...

Purpose – We propose applying Reardon's approach to the measurement of ordinal segregation to the study of inequality in life chances in the case of ordinal variables. We also propose additional measures of inequality in life chances in such a case. Methodology – We state the desirable...