‘Williamson’s Fallacy’ in Estimation of Inter-Regional Inequality

Gluschenko, Konstantin (2015): ‘Williamson’s Fallacy’ in Estimation of Inter-Regional Inequality.

Abstract

Following Williamson (1965), many economists estimate inter-regional inequality with the use of indexes weighted by regions’ shares in the national population. Despite that widespread, this approach is conceptually inconsistent, yielding an estimate of interpersonal inequality among the whole population of the country rather than an estimate of inter-regional inequality. On the other hand, if one considers such an estimate as a proxy of population inequality, it is very rough and for the most part misleading.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Inequality index Weighting by population Williamson coefficient of variation Gini coefficient
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D3 - Distribution > D31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R10 - General

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