Measuring Interstate and Interregional Income Inequality in the United States

Abstract

Interstate and interregional income inequality are reported for each year from 1929 to 1990 using a measure that belongs to the entropy family. It was found that a substantial reduction in inequality occurred between the early 1930s and mid-J970s, followed by a slight increase thereafter for both interstate and interregion. In particular, interregional inequality as a percentage of total interstate was reduced from approximately 85% in the 1940s to approximately 55% in the mid-1980s, increasing thereafter to 61% in 1990.