Some results on Bayesian inference using Zenga curve and related measures

Abstract

The current research work relates to Bayesian inference related to a few inequality measures. Out of the many income inequality measures, the Lorenz curve (1905) and Bonferroni curve (1930) are the most popular because of its good statistical properties and straightforward economic interpretation. However, keeping in mind that the notions of poor and rich are relative to each other, Zenga (2007) proposed a new index of income inequality. The Zenga curve and its associated index introduced by Zenga are based on a comparison of the mean income of the poorer income earners with the mean income of the remaining richest part of the population. Motivated by this, we have considered more aspects on the Zenga measure as well as other income inequality measures using Bayesian inference approach. In addition to examining the connection between the Zenga curve and other existing inequality measures, we have obtained the Bayes estimators of Zenga curve as an alternate measure of inequality in context to some important income distributions. Also the Bayesian credible intervals have been obtained in the thesis for the income distributions. newline