The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in earnings inequality was even larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Although the conventional explanation of a falling...

The March Current Population Survey (CPS) is the primary data source for estimation of levels and trends in labor earnings and income inequality in the USA. Time-inconsistency problems related to top coding in theses data have led many researchers to use the ratio of the 90th and 10th...

The ``Palma'' is the ratio of national income shares of the top 10 percent of households to the bottom 40 percent, reflecting Gabriel Palma's observation of the stability of the ``middle'' 50 percent share of income across countries so that distribution is largely a question of the tails. In...

The `Vast majority of incomes ratio (VMIR)' $R_0$ is the ratio of the average income $\mu_0$ of a poorest majority $p_0$ of the population to the overall average income $\mu$. Another measure of equality is $E_0\equiv(1-G)$ where $G$ is the Gini coefficient of inequality of the distribution....

It is well-known that Gini coefficient is influenced by granularity of measurements. When there are few observations only or when they get reduced due to grouping, standard measures exhibit a non-negligible downward bias. At times, bias may be positive when there is an apparent reduction in...

The European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is the main source of information about living standards and poverty in the member states of the European Union. It provides reliable statistics at national level but sample sizes do not allow reliable estimates at sub-national...

"Measured by the Gini coefficient, income inequality in Brazil rose from 0.57 in 1981 to 0.63 in 1989, before falling back to 0.56 in 2004. This latest figure would lower Brazil's world inequality rank from 2nd (in 1989) to 10th (in 2004). Poverty incidence also followed an inverted U-curve over...