The Atlas of Inequality Aversion: A New Dataset added to the LIS Complementary Database
This database contains the country-specific estimates of inequality aversion, Atkinson index, equally distributed equivalent income, and the GB2 distribution parameters. The database is an updated version of estimates that Stanislaw Maciej Kot and Piotr Paradowski initially presented in LIS Working Paper #826 (forthcoming in Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy). The database now contains parameters estimated for 664 data points for 56 countries dating as far back as the late 1960s. The sole parameter ε of the constant relative inequality aversion utility function (Atkinson, 1970) expresses a society’s aversion to inequality and is derived from the mathematical condition of the existence of the social welfare function estimated from a parametric distribution of income (GB2(a,b,p,q)). The authors call it the Atlas of Inequality Aversion parameters. It is the first such database that allows researchers not only from the field of welfare economics but also in other social science disciplines to obtain inequality aversions that they can use in various ways to benefit their scientific investigations. Understanding the threshold of a population’s tolerance to inequality can also help steer economic policy decision-making.
Users can access the data and its documentation from here.