Statistical studies of income, poverty and inequality in Europe : computing and graphics in R using EU-SILC / Nicholas T. Longford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Longford, Nicholas T., 1955- author.

Series:

Statistics in the social and behavioral sciences series

Chapman & Hall/CRC statistics in the social and behavioral sciences

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Income distribution--Europe.

Income distribution.

Poverty--Europe.

Poverty.

Equality--Europe.

Equality.

Social sciences--Research--Mathematical models.

Social sciences.

Social sciences--Research.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xxii, 354 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press, [2015]

Summary:

"There is no shortage of incentives to study and reduce poverty in our societies. Poverty is studied in economics and political sciences, and population surveys are an important source of information about it. The design and analysis of such surveys is principally a statistical subject matter and the computer is essential for their data compilation and processing.Focusing on The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), a program of annual national surveys which collect data related to poverty and social exclusion, Statistical Studies of Income, Poverty and Inequality in Europe: Computing and Graphics in R presents a set of statistical analyses pertinent to the general goals of EU-SILC. The contents of the volume are biased toward computing and statistics, with reduced attention to economics, political and other social sciences. The emphasis is on methods and procedures as opposed to results, because the data from annual surveys made available since publication and in the near future will degrade the novelty of the data used and the results derived in this volume.The aim of this volume is not to propose specific methods of analysis, but to open up the analytical agenda and address the aspects of the key definitions in the subject of poverty assessment that entail nontrivial elements of arbitrariness. The presented methods do not exhaust the range of analyses suitable for EU-SILC, but will stimulate the search for new methods and adaptation of established methods that cater to the identified purposes"-- Provided by publisher.

"Preface A majority of the population in the established members of the European Union (EU) has over the last few decades enjoyed prosperity, comfort and freedom from existential threats, such as food shortage, various forms of destruction of our lifes, homes and other possessions, judicial excesses or barred access to vital services, such as health care, education, insurance and transportation. New technologies, epitomised by the internet and the mobile phone, but also micro-surgery and cheap long-distance travel, have transformed the ways we access information, communicate with one another, obtain health care, education, training and entertainment, and how public services and administration operate. Our economies and societies have a great capacity to invent, apply inventions and package them in forms amenable for personal use by the masses. These great achievements have not been matched in one important area, namely, tackling poverty. Poverty is about as widespread in our societies as it was a few decades ago when, admittedly, our standards for what amounts to prosperity were somewhat more modest (Atkinson, 1998). Yet, there is no shortage of incentives to reduce poverty in our societies. The purely economic ones are that the poor are poor consumers, and much of our prosperity is derived from the consumption by others; the poor are poor contributors to the public funds (by taxes on income, property and consumption), which pay for some of the vital services and developments. More profound concerns are that the poor are a threat to the social cohesion, are more likely to be attracted to criminal and other illegal activities, and represent a threat to all those who are not poor, because we would not like ourselves and those dear to us to live in such circumstances"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Poverty Rate 1

1.1 Background 1

1.1.1 Median and Percentiles 3

1.1.2 Populations and Samples 4

1.2 Income Distribution 7

1.2.1 Poverty-Rate Curves 8

1.3 Comparisons 12

1.4 Sampling Weights 14

1.4.1 Trimming 10

1.A Appendix. Programming Notes 20

1.A.1 Data Input 20

1.A.2 Estimating a Quantile 23

1.A.3 Summarising the Weights 25

1.A.4 Some Auxiliary Functions 27

1.A.5 Plotting a Set of Curves 29

1.A.6 Final Touch in a Diagram 31

1.A.7 Countries in EU-SILC 35

2 Statistical Background 37

2.1 Replications. Fixed and Random 37

2.2 Estimation. Sample Quantities 38

2.2.1 Weighted Sample Median 39

2.3 Sampling Variation. Bootstrap 40

2.4 Horvitz-Thompson Estimator 45

2.5 Fragility of Unbiasedness and Efficiency 47

2.5.1 Lognormal Distribution 48

2.A Appendix 49

2.A.1 Bootstrap 49

2.A.2 Moments of the Lognormal Distribution 52

3 Poverty Indices 53

3.1 Poverty Index 53

3.1.1 Which Kernel? 56

3.2 Relative and Log-Poverty Gaps 60

3.3 Lorenz Curve and Gini Coefficient 63

3.4 Scaled Quantiles 73

3.4.1 Permutation Test 75

3.5 Income Inequality, Kernels, Scores and Scaling 75

3.A Appendix 77

3.A.1 Negative Values of eHI 77

3.A.2 Newton Method in R 80

3.A.3 More on Poverty Indices 82

3.A.4 Lorenz Curve and Gini Coefficient 87

3.A.5 Scaled Quantiles 91

3.A.6 Permutation Test 93

4 Mixtures of Distributions 97

4.1 Introduction 97

4.2 Fitting Mixtures 100

4.3 Examples 102

4.3.1 Exploration of the Fitted Probabilities 104

4.3.2 Results for Several Countries 110

4.4 Improper Component 113

4.5 Components as Clusters 116

4.5.1 Confusion Matrix 120

4.A Appendix. Programming Notes 121

4.A.1 EM Algorithm for Mixtures of Normal Distributions 121

4.A.2 Improper Component 131

4.A.3 Confusion Index 132

5 Regions 135

5.1 Introduction 135

5.2 Analysis of Regions 137

5.3 Small-Area Estimation 142

5.4 Using Auxiliary Information 146

5.5 Regions of Spain 148

5.5.1 Composite Estimation of the Poverty Rates 150

5.6 Regions of France 156

5.7 Simulations 158

5.A Appendix 160

5.A.1 Estimation of Region-Level (Co-)Variances 160

5.A.2 Report Card for Austria and Its Regions 161

5.B Programming Notes 161

5.B.1 Composite Estimation 168

5.B.2 Multivariate Composition 170

5.B.3 Graphics 173

6 Transitions 175

6.1 Panel Data 175

6.2 Absolute and Relative Rates of Transition 182

6.3 Substantial Transitions 186

6.4 Partial Scoring of Transitions 191

6.5 Transitions over Several Years 194

6.6 Imputed Patterns 197

6.A Appendix. Programming Notes 203

6.A.1 National Panel Databases 203

6.A.2 Rates of Transition 207

7 Multivariate Mixtures 215

7.1 Multivariate Normal Distributions 215

7.1.1 Finite Mixtures of Normal Distributions 216

7.2 EM Algorithm 217

7.3 Example 218

7.4 Improper Component 227

7.5 Mixture Models for the Countries in EU-SILC 230

7.6 Stability of Income 232

7.7 Confusion and Separation 234

7.A Appendix 236

7.A.1 What Can Go Wrong in Iterations of EM 236

7.B Programming Notes 237

7.B.1 Improper Component 245

7.B.2 Stability of Income 247

7.B.3 Confusion Index 249

8 Social Transfers 251

8.1 Capacity of Social Transfers 251

8.2 Impact of Social Transfers 254

8.3 Potential and Effectiveness 261

8.4 Nonparanietric Regression 264

8.4.1 Smoothing Sequences 270

8.5 Perils of Indices 272

8.A Appendix. Programming Notes 274

8.A.1 Nonparanietric Regression 277

8.A.2 Graphics for Nonparanietric Regression 281

9 Causes and Effects. Education and Income 285

9.1 Background and Motivation 285

9.2 Definitions and Notation 287

9.2.1 Treatment-Assignment Mechanism 288

9.3 Missing-Data Perspective 290

9.4 Propensity and Matched Pairs 293

9.4.1 Regression as an Alternative 294

9.5 Application 296

9.5.1 Results for Other Countries 304

9.5.2 Regression of Outcome on Treatment and Background 305

9.5.3 Potential Versions of Variables 307

9.A Appendix. Programming Notes 308

9.A.1 Second-Level Functions 313

9.A.2 Graphics for the Balance Diagnostics 322.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781466568327

1466568321

OCLC:

884139259

Online:

Cover image