The Ranking of Inequality in Human Capital : Evidence from Asian Countries

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate that the international cross-sectional comparison of inequalities in human capital and education among 16 Asian countries. More specifically we employed the order-ranking of Gini coefficients that is workable in empirical studies as well as that of Lorenz curves sequenced from basic pairwise Lorenz dominance comparisons of 240 cases. The latter is provided as an alternative measure of education and human capital distribution in comparison with the former measure. Our major finding is rank correlation coefficients between both measures of both inequalities are high and significant but not unity. At least in this data set, the rankings of inequalities in education and human capital from two measures are able to apply in empirics. Gini index of both inequalities were calculated from Cohen & Soto's educational attainment data-set during 1960-2010; ten-year interval period. Data obtained from these Asian countries is computed to confirm the relationship education, human capital, and their inequalities. We found the negative linear relationship between average years of schooling and its Gini while the relationship between stock of human capital and its Gini becomes inverted-U shape curve.