10 The measurement of income distribution and the measurement of inequality
A critical analysis
I. Introduction
I.I. Economic inequality as a concept
Intuitively, economic inequality is the gap in living standards between individuals or between groups of people within a polity or geographic area. Since an individual’s standard of living primarily depends on his or her income and wealth, the extent of the income and wealth inequality between them, i.e., the gap between the income and the wealth of individuals, usually provides an accurate picture of the degree of economic inequality between them. Thus, to say that economic inequality has increased is to say that the gap between the income and the wealth of certain individuals ...
