Saturday, March 27, 2004
I'm praying for mayhem
I'm praying for a tidal wave
I wanna see the ground give way
I wanna watch it all go down.
Two separate measures of inequality are used in this paper: the Gini index, and the poorest quintile’s share of income. The Gini index is a relative measure of income distribution, based on deviations from a theoretical norm of perfect equality. A Lorenz curve for a country is constructed, which is a representation of the percentage of income received from each income group (often divided into quintiles). The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenze curve and a line of perfect equality (i.e. each quintile receives 20%). A 100 indicates perfect inequality, where a 0 indicates perfect equality. The poorest quintile’s share of income is just the amount of income received by the poorest 20% of the population. Data on the Gini index and the poorest quintile’s share of income was obtained from the United Nation Development Program’s Human Development Report 2003, which in turn collected the data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2003 CD-ROM. The majority of the Gini and quintile data was taken from the late nineties, with some samples in the early nineties. This leaves this study open to some error, but since the Gini coefficient is a slow-moving variable, it will be assumed that the values given are representative of equality in 2001.
Data on infant mortality, under-five mortality, and total fertility rate data was obtained from the United Nations Population Division’s “World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision Population Database” and is for the year 2001. The total fertility rate is the number of children that a woman would have if she was not subject to mortality, or the hypothetical number of children born to a woman who was fecund (fertile) from menarche, the onset of menstruation, to menopause. This is preferred to general fertility rate and the net reproduction rate, as it removes possible income effects on a woman’s life expectancy.
The infant mortality rate is the number of children in a thousand who die between birth and their first birthday. The under-five mortality rate is just an expanded version of this: the number of children per 1,000 who die before or on their fifth birthday. When graphed against GDP per capita (Figure 1.1), we can see that infant mortality rates are quite high for low-income countries, but decrease quickly as income increases. However, there are diminishing returns to reducing child mortality, as can be seen below.
I'm praying for a tidal wave
I wanna see the ground give way
I wanna watch it all go down.
Two separate measures of inequality are used in this paper: the Gini index, and the poorest quintile’s share of income. The Gini index is a relative measure of income distribution, based on deviations from a theoretical norm of perfect equality. A Lorenz curve for a country is constructed, which is a representation of the percentage of income received from each income group (often divided into quintiles). The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenze curve and a line of perfect equality (i.e. each quintile receives 20%). A 100 indicates perfect inequality, where a 0 indicates perfect equality. The poorest quintile’s share of income is just the amount of income received by the poorest 20% of the population. Data on the Gini index and the poorest quintile’s share of income was obtained from the United Nation Development Program’s Human Development Report 2003, which in turn collected the data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2003 CD-ROM. The majority of the Gini and quintile data was taken from the late nineties, with some samples in the early nineties. This leaves this study open to some error, but since the Gini coefficient is a slow-moving variable, it will be assumed that the values given are representative of equality in 2001.
Data on infant mortality, under-five mortality, and total fertility rate data was obtained from the United Nations Population Division’s “World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision Population Database” and is for the year 2001. The total fertility rate is the number of children that a woman would have if she was not subject to mortality, or the hypothetical number of children born to a woman who was fecund (fertile) from menarche, the onset of menstruation, to menopause. This is preferred to general fertility rate and the net reproduction rate, as it removes possible income effects on a woman’s life expectancy.
The infant mortality rate is the number of children in a thousand who die between birth and their first birthday. The under-five mortality rate is just an expanded version of this: the number of children per 1,000 who die before or on their fifth birthday. When graphed against GDP per capita (Figure 1.1), we can see that infant mortality rates are quite high for low-income countries, but decrease quickly as income increases. However, there are diminishing returns to reducing child mortality, as can be seen below.
Monday, March 22, 2004
