Browsing by Author "Subramanian, S."

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Open Access
Exploring A New Class of Inequality Measures and Associated Value Judgements: Gini and Fibonacci-Type Sequences
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2022) Creedy, John; Subramanian, S.
This paper explores a single-parameter generalization of the Gini inequality measure. Taking the starting point to be the Borda-type social welfare function, which is known to generate the standard Gini measure, in which incomes (in ascending order) are weighted by their inverse rank, the generalisation uses a class of non-linear functions. These are based on the so-called ‘metallic sequences’ of number theory, of which the Fibonacci sequence is the best-known. The value judgements implicit in the measures are explored in detail. Comparisons with other well-known Gini measures, along with the Atkinson measure, are made. These are examined within the context of the famous ‘leaky bucket’ thought experiment, which concerns the maximum leak that a judge is prepared to tolerate, when making an income transfer from a richer to a poorer person. Inequality aversion is thus viewed in terms of being an increasing function of the leakage that is regarded as acceptable.
Open Access
Mortality Comparisons 'At a Glance': A Mortality Concentration Curve and Decomposition Analysis for India
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2022) Creedy, John; Subramanian, S.
This paper uses the concept of the M-Curve, which plots the cumulative proportion of deaths against the corresponding cumulative proportion of the population (arranged in ascending order of age), and associated measures, to examine mortality experience in India. A feature of the M-curve is that it can be combined with an explicit value judgement (an aversion to early deaths) in order to make welfare-loss comparisons. Empirical comparisons over time, and between regions and genders, are made. Furthermore, in order to provide additional perspective, selective results for the UK and New Zealand are reported. It is also shown how the M-curve concept can be used to separate the contributions to overall mortality of changes over time (or differences between population groups) to the population age distribution and age-specific mortality rates.
Open Access
Mortality Comparisons and Age: a New Mortality Curve
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2022) Creedy, John; Subramanian, S.
This paper introduces a new mortality curve to illustrate and measure mortality and its relation to age. The curve draws on the ‘Lorenz-Gini’ framework of income-inequality measurement. The paper advances the cause of a ‘mortality curve’ analogous to the Lorenz curve, and a ‘mortality-inefficiency’ measure analogous to the Gini coefficient of inequality. The idea is to supplement the Crude Death Rate (CDR) with a mortality-inefficiency measure in a composite index of mortality which attends to both the mean and the dispersion of an age-distribution of deaths.