Report
OA Policy
English

Robust Lorenz Curves: A Semi-Parametric Approach

Number of pages27
PublisherLondon
Collection
  • DARP discussion paper; 50
Publication date2001
Abstract

Lorenz curves and second-order dominance criteria are known to be sensitive to data contamination in the right tail of the distribution. We propose two ways of dealing with the problem: (1) Estimate Lorenz curves using parametric models for income distributions, and (2) Combine empirical estimation with a parametric (robust) estimation of the upper tail of the distribution using the Pareto model. Approach (2) is preferred because of its flexibility. Using simulations we show the dramatic effect of a few contaminated data on the Lorenz ranking and the performance of the robust approach (2). Statistical inference tools are also provided.

Keywords
  • Welfare dominance
  • Lorenz curve
  • Pareto model
  • Mestimators
Citation (ISO format)
COWELL, Frank, VICTORIA-FESER, Maria-Pia. Robust Lorenz Curves: A Semi-Parametric Approach. 2001
Main files (1)
Report
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
  • PID : unige:6620
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414downloads

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Creation12/05/2010 13:12:00
First validation12/05/2010 13:12:00
Update time14/03/2023 16:29:06
Status update14/03/2023 16:29:06
Last indexation29/10/2024 15:46:43
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