DescTools (version 0.99.54)

Atkinson: Atkinson Index - A Measure of Inequality.

Description

The Atkinson index is an inequality measure and is useful in determining which end of the distribution contributed most to the observed inequality.

Usage

Atkinson(x, n = rep(1, length(x)), parameter = 0.5, na.rm = FALSE)

Value

the value of the Akinson Index.

Arguments

x

a vector containing at least non-negative elements.

n

a vector of frequencies, must be same length as x.

parameter

parameter of the inequality measure (if set to NULL the default parameter of the respective measure is used).

na.rm

logical. Should missing values be removed? Defaults to FALSE.

Author

Achim Zeileis <[e-mail]>

References

Cowell, F. A. (2000) Measurement of Inequality in Atkinson, A. B. / Bourguignon, F. (Eds): Handbook of Income Distribution. Amsterdam.

Cowell, F. A. (1995) Measuring Inequality Harvester Wheatshef: Prentice Hall.

Marshall, Olkin (1979) Inequalities: Theory of Majorization and Its Applications. New York: Academic Press.

Atkinson, A. B. (1970): On the Measurment of Inequality, Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 2(3), pp. 244-263.

See Also

See Herfindahl, Rosenbluth for concentration measures and ineq() in the package ineq for additional inequality measures

Examples

# generate vector (of incomes)
x <- c(541, 1463, 2445, 3438, 4437, 5401, 6392, 8304, 11904, 22261)

# compute Atkinson coefficient with parameter=1
Atkinson(x, parameter=1)