A new continuous distribution and two new families of distributions based on the exponential

Recent work on social status led to derivation of a new continuous distribution based on the exponential. The new variate, termed the ring(2)-exponential, in turn leads to derivation of two closely related new families of continuous distributions, the mirror-exponential and the ring-exponential. Both the standard exponential and the ring(2)-exponential are special cases of both the new families. In this paper, we first focus on the ring(2)-exponential, describing its derivation and examining its properties, and next introduce the two new families, describing their derivation and initiating exploration of their properties. The mirror-exponential arises naturally in the study of status; the ring-exponential arises from the mathematical structure of the ring(2)-exponential. Both have the potential for broad application in diverse contexts across science and engineering. Within sociobehavioral contexts, the new mirror-exponential may have application to the problem of approximating the form and inequality of the wage distribution.     

基尼系数的含义及其不足

本文提出了用基尼系数作为衡量贫富差距的指标以及基尼系数的各种计算方法。同时指出本身的不足与统计上的难度。并认为在当今中国经济高速发展与贫富差距日益扩大的情况下，有必要不断完善这一指标体系，为政府的宏观决策提供有力的准确与科学的依据。     

新疆城市居民收入不平等现状分析

本文采用基尼系数及其分解公式对新疆2003年城市居民收入调查的2828个样本数据进行分析，根据新疆的地理特征将基尼系数按南疆与北疆进行分解计算，并按收入来源对基尼系数进行集中度分解分析，结果表明新疆的收入不平等状况并不严重，南疆的收入差距大于北疆，工资收入和转移收入是收入差距增大的主要原因。     

收入差距、位置消费与社会稳定

适度、合理的收入差距,不仅是激励人们竞争,促进发展的重要务件,也是位置消费产生的基本条件;但过分悬殊的收入差距则不仅会影响人们的社会心理,不利于提高有效消费,而且可能产生畸形的位置消费行为,甚至会因此影响社会的稳定.在分析和研究目前收入分配问题时,应当从位置消费的新视角研究它们对社会稳定的影响.研究位置消费有利于我们从人们相互比较的满意度中观察改革的效果,权衡各项利弊得失,并及时地采取微调措施,尽可能地减少改革的摩擦和阻力.     

我国城乡居民健康公平性研究

本文采用历史的、比较的分析方法,运用基尼系数、洛伦茨曲线等分析工具,分别从筹资公平、服务提供公平和健康公平三个方面对我国城乡居民健康公平问题进行了定性与定量分析,得出了新型农村合作医疗制度的开展显著降低了城乡卫生服务筹资的基尼系数等一系列结果.根据研究结果,对城乡健康公平性与二元社会结构,与政府干预、市场调节之间的关系作了分析,并对提高城乡健康公平性提出了相关政策建议.     

中国制造业地理集聚的成因与趋势

改革开放以来,中国的制造业空间格局发生了显著的重构。本文基于中国省区尺度的制造业数据,描述了改革开放以来到2008年期间的中国制造业的空间集聚的变化趋势和特征。总体上,现阶段中国的制造业地理集聚程度较高,主要集聚在东部沿海地区。然而中国制造业地理集聚存在显著的产业差异,依赖于特定自然资源投入的产业,地理集聚程度相对较低,而依赖大量中间产品投入的资本技术密集型产业的地理集聚度则较高。劳动密集型产业由于是外资主导并且以出口为主,高度集中在沿海省区。中国的产业集聚变化趋势具有明显的阶段性特征,从上个世纪90年代初开始,产业地理集聚程度上升进入了加速期,地理集聚程度在2004年左右达到顶峰。本文回顾了中国产业地理集聚的理论和实证研究,传统的贸易理论、新经济地理学理论和集聚经济理论是理解中国的产业集聚的重要视角,但中国转型经济的特殊制度环境下,市场化、全球化和地方分权对中国制造业业集聚和分散具有显著影响。随着中国经济转型的深化及其在全球经济体中地位的调整,全球力量与地方力量的相互作用将不断重塑中国的制造业地理格局。     

Twenty Years of Expenditure Inequality in Indonesia, 1993–2013

In this article, we consider the recent increase in inequality in Indonesia. We make new, consistent estimates of expenditure inequality for 1993–2013, using several measures that draw on household expenditure data from the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) for 1993–2013. In doing so, we note that the central statistics agency, Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS), used grouped data for its estimates of inequality until 2009 and that this underestimated inequality up to then. Thus the rise in inequality reported since 2009 actually has a longer history. We argue that Indonesia experienced divergence and convergence at the same time: the magnitude of the rise in inequality was significant (divergence), but the rise was greatest in provinces or districts with low initial levels of inequality (convergence). We consider the literature on drivers of changes in inequality and identify a set of hypotheses, with an empirical basis, which we introduce as potential Indonesian-specific drivers of rising inequality for future exploration.     

Using Personal Car Register for Measuring Economic Inequality in Countries with a Large Share of Shadow Economy: Evidence for Latvia

We suggest using information from the state register of personal cars as an alternative indicator of economic inequality in countries with a large share of shadow economy. We illustrate our approach using the Latvian pool of personal cars. Our main finding is that the extent of household economic inequality in Latvia is much larger than officially assumed. According to Eurostat, the officially published estimate of the Gini coefficient for Latvia is 0.374 for 2009, which is much higher than the Gini coefficient value reported for all the 27 EU member countries (0.304), but significantly lower than 0.48 according to our results.     

A Different Perspective on the Evolution of UK Income Inequality

This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top (and make our estimates available to other researchers). We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2.     

The trend of the Gini coefficient of China (1978–2010)

ABSTRACT

This study proposes a new approach to analyse the effects of an overlap term on the calculation of the overall Gini coefficient and estimates China’s Gini ratios since the adoption of the economic reform and open-door policies. A decomposition of the Chinese Gini coefficient for 1978–2010 reveals that the key factor contributing to income inequalities is the income disparity between rural and urban inhabitants. We further investigate the features of this income inequality between rural and urban areas and employ statistical approaches to evaluate the effects of urbanisation and rural-to-urban average income on nationwide income inequality. The results show that accelerating the pace of urbanisation is mainly responsible for decreasing China’s income disparity. Drawing on these results, we conclude with suggestions for related policies.