This paper attempts to explicitly integrate the idea of reference group when measuring relative deprivation. It assumes that in assessing her situation in society an individual compares herself with individuals whose environment can be considered as being similar to hers. By environment we mean...

This paper proposes to apply diversity indices to the study of wealth composition. At the individual level a diversity index like the so-called Gini-Simpson index would then measure the probability that two dollars, drawn randomly from the total wealth of an individual, are allocated to two...

This book uses welfare theoretic and descriptive approaches to present recent advances in the study of inequality, polarization and poverty. It is filled with graphs, charts, and non-technical explanations of technical terms and mathematical operations.

The parameterization of income distributions using Lorenz Curves is a useful technique to analyze the characteristics of income inequality within a given population. It provides a way of describing how data are generated, why the level of inequality is what it is, and how these factors impact...

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...

Traditional indices of bi-dimensional inequality and polarization were developed for cardinal variables and cannot be used to quantify dispersion in ordinal measures of socioeconomic status and health. This paper develops two approaches to the measurement of inequality and bi-polarization using...