Title: How to Retrieve the Lorenz Curve from Sparse Data
Abstract: It is widely felt among empirically oriented economists that too much of the information on income distribution that is actually collected by statistical offices is lost in what is eventually published. Typically, only a few points of the Lorenz curve are made available whereas in applied work often the entire curve is required. This need to know the entire Lorenz curve arises already when the Intention is merely to extract e.g. the Gini concentration ratio with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and it becomes more urgent when the informational content of such unidimensional inequality measures is to be supplemented by additional information from the Lorenz curve. For instance, calculation of the minor concentration ratio proposed by Hagerbaumer (1977), which is meant to measure the relative position of the poor, requires sufficiently reliable information on the shape of the Lorenz curve over at least the lower income deciles, whereas the derivation of Lorenz coefficients as suggested by Koo, Quan, and Rasche (1981), which may convey useful information on the contribution of certain income classes to overall inequality1 presupposes in essence knowledge of the Lorenz curve over all its range.
Publication Year: 1988
Publication Date: 1988-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 2
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