Ordinal Bivariate Inequality: Concepts and Application to Child Deprivation inMozambique

Abstract

This paper introduces a concept of inequality comparisons with ordinal bivariate categorical data. In our model, one population is more unequal than another when they have common arithmetic median outcomes and the first can be obtained from the second by correlation‐increasing switches and/or median‐preserving spreads. For the canonical 2 × 2 case (with two binary indicators), we derive a simple operational procedure for checking ordinal inequality relations in practice. As an illustration, we apply the model to childhood deprivation in Mozambique.

Is body weight better distributed among men than among women? A robust normative analysis for France, the UK, and the US*

“…Examples of contributions that have proposed specific methods for that purpose are Allison and Foster (2004), Abul‐Naga and Yalcin (2008), Apouey (2007), Kobus and Milós (2012), Zheng (2008, 2011), Cowell and Flachaire (2017), and Sonne‐Schmidt et al. (2016).…”

“…Yet, it is fair to say that a growing number of researchers, especially in the fields of health and development economics where categorical or ordinal data are common, have recognized this. Examples of contributions that have proposed specific methods for that purpose are Allison and Foster (2004), Abul-Naga and Yalcin (2008), Apouey (2007), Kobus and Milós (2012), Zheng (2008Zheng ( , 2011, Flachaire (2017), andSonne-Schmidt et al (2016).…”

Inequality and Welfare in Quality of Life Among OECD Countries: Non-parametric Treatment of Ordinal Data

“…Other contributions in the area of multidimensionality have very limited applicability e.g. Sonne- Schmidt et al (2016) and Makdisi and Yazbeck (2014) study only binary variables.…”

Decomposing bivariate dominance for social welfare comparisons

“…6 A correlation increasing switch consists of two simultaneous transfers that move mass from intermediate outcomes to more extreme outcomes without changing the marginal distributions. Among others, Atkinson and Bourguignon (1982), Tsui (1999), Decancq (2012) and Sonne-Schmidt, Tarp, and Østerdal (2015) argue that correlation increasing switches are basic operations that (unambiguously) increase inequality.…”