Gini function

Compute the simple Gini coefficient

Computes the simple Gini coefficient of unequality

Gini(x)

Arguments

• x: a numeric vector with non-negative elements

Details

Gini coefficient is a common measure of inequality. Here it presents only for the convenience to have this calculation "outside" of social science R packages (where it commonly presents). Please read elsewhere of its meaning and uses.

Code is based on the 'reldist' package from Mark S. Handcock but simplified to revome the using of weights (as a sideway result, it should be slightly faster).

Returns

The Gini coefficient (number between 0 and 1).

References

Relative Distribution Methods in the Social Sciences, by Mark S. Handcock and Martina Morris, Springer-Verlag, Inc., New York, 1999. ISBN 0387987789.

Author(s)

Alexey Shipunov

Examples

salary <- c(21, 19, 27, 11, 102, 25, 21)
Gini(salary)

new.1000 <- sample((median(salary) - IQR(salary)) :
(median(salary) + IQR(salary)), 1000, replace=TRUE)
salary2 <- c(salary, new.1000)
Gini(salary2)

salary3 <- salary[-which.max(salary)]
salary3
Gini(salary3)

salary4 <- c(salary3, 1010)
salary4
Gini(salary4)