Abstract
Measures of concentration (inequality) are often used in the analysis of income and wage size distributions. Among, them the Gini and Zenga coefficients are of greatest importance. It is well known that income inequality in Poland increased significantly in the period of transformation from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. High income inequality can be a source of serious problems, such as increasing poverty, social stratification, and polarization. Therefore, it seems especially important to present reliable estimates of income inequality measures for a population of households in Poland in different divisions. In this paper, some estimation methods for Gini and Zenga concentration measures are presented together with their application to the analysis of income distributions in Poland by socio-economic groups. The basis for the calculations was individual data coming from the Polish Household Budget Survey conducted by the Central Statistical Office. The standard errors of Gini and Zenga coefficients were estimated by means of the bootstrap and the parametric approach based on the Dagum model.
Highlights
Measures of inequality are widely used to study income, welfare, and poverty issues. They can be helpful to analyze the efficiency of a tax policy or to measure the level of social stratification and polarization
The Gini concentration coefficient based on the Lorenz curve is the most widely used measure of income inequality
The term Djh, called either economic distance ratio or REA, plays a crucial role in the decomposition (3), and can be regarded as the measure of relative economic affluence of the j-th subpopulation with respect to the h-th subpopulation: Another interesting measure of income inequality based on a concentration curve was proposed by Zenga (1990)
Summary
Measures of inequality are widely used to study income, welfare, and poverty issues. They can be helpful to analyze the efficiency of a tax policy or to measure the level of social stratification and polarization. The Gini concentration coefficient based on the Lorenz curve is the most widely used measure of income inequality. The main objective of the paper is to use survey data to analyze income inequality in Poland by socio-economic groups by means of selected concentration measures and their decomposition. This approach can further be used to assess relative economic affluence of one subpopulation with respect to another and to estimate stratification indices. The term Djh, called either economic distance ratio or REA, plays a crucial role in the decomposition (3), and can be regarded as the measure of relative economic affluence of the j-th subpopulation with respect to the h-th subpopulation: Another interesting measure of income inequality based on a concentration curve was proposed by Zenga (1990).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
