The Visiting Speaker Series is an opportunity for invited researchers and professionals, external to the University of Guelph, to present their research topic(s) to faculty and students. On March 10, the Department of Economics and Finance will welcome Jim Davies, Western University . Anyone from the University of Guelph is welcome to attend.

Abstract

The Gini coefficient is based on the sum of pairwise income differences. For an individual, differences vis-à-vis poorer people represent advantage, and those versus richer people deprivation. Any weighted average of deprivation and advantage generates a “Gini admissible” personal inequality index. The mean value of such an index across individuals equals the Gini coefficient. Properties of the personal indexes explain the differing sensitivity of the Gini coefficient to inequality in various ranges of the income distribution. Applications to the Kuznets transformation in developing countries, to polarization in advanced countries and to broad increases or decreases in income dispersion are explored.