Ethical Social Index Numbers

This book gives an overall view of the application of social evaluation functions to various income distribution based measurement problems. Many of the results presented are applicable to attributes other than income. The book will be useful for economists, political theorists, sociologists, statisticians and others.

Inhalt
1: On Quasi-Orderings of Income Profiles.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Social Evaluation (Welfare) Functions and their Arguments.- 1.3 Some Definitions.- 1.4 The Lorenz Quasi-Ordering.- 1.5 Some Alternative Quasi-Orderings.- 1.6 Concluding Remarks.- 2: Ethical Indices of Inequality.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Postulates for the Selection of an Index of Inequality.- 2.3 Cardinally Significant Ethical Indices of Relative Inequality.- 2.4 Cardinally Significant Ethical Indices of Absolute and Intermediate Inequality.- 2.5 Inequality as an Ordinal Concept.- 2.6 Decomposition of Inequality Indices by Population Subgroups and by Factor Components.- 2.7 Concluding Remarks.- 3: The Gini Indices of Inequality.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 A Formal Definition of the Lorenz Curve for a Continuum of Population.- 3.3 A General Definition of the Lorenz Curve.- 3.4 An Extension of the Gini Index of Relative Inequality.- 3.5 Alternative Generalisations of the Gini Index.- 3.6 Empirical Estimation of Inequality Indices from Grouped Data.- 3.7 Concluding Remarks.- 4: Ethical Indices of Distance Between Income Profiles.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Ethically Coherent Distance Functions.- 4.3 A Characterisation Theorem.- 4.4 Concluding Remarks.- 5: The Measurement of Relative Deprivation.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 A Simple Index of Relative Deprivation and the Implied Welfare Ordering.- 5.3 Ethical Indices of Relative Deprivation.- 5.4 Concluding Remarks.- 6: Ethically Flexible Indices of Poverty.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 Properties for an Index of Poverty.- 6.3 Relative Indices of Poverty.- 6.4 Absolute Indices of Poverty.- 6.5 Concluding Remarks.- 7: Additively Decomposable Indices of Poverty.- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 Decomposability.- 7.3 Additively Decomposable Indices of Poverty.- 7.4 Empirical Estimationof Poverty Indices from Grouped Data.- 7.5 Concluding Remarks.- 8: Measurement of Tax Progressivity and Horizontal Inequity.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Indices of Local Progression.- 8.3 An Ethical Index of Global Tax Progressivity.- 8.4 Ethical Indices for the Measurement of Horizontal Inequity.- 8.5 Alternative Indices of Tax Progressivity and Horizontal Inequity.- 8.6 Concluding Remarks.- 9: Ethical Indices of Income Mobility.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Ethical Indices of Relative Mobility.- 9.3 Alternative Concepts of Mobility.- 9.4 Concluding Remarks.- Extended Bibliography.