The most popular general univariate polarization indexes for discrete and continuous variables are extended and combined to describe the extent of polarization between agents in a distribution defined over a collection of many discrete and continuous agent characteristics. A formula for the asymptotic variance of the index is also provided. The implementation of the index is illustrated with an...

The Library Series of the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access quarterly in the humanities and the social sciences CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture publishes scholarship in the humanities and social sciences following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the CLCWeb Librar...

Prais (1958) showed that the standard CPI computed by most statistical agencies can be interpreted as a weighted average of household price indexes, where the weight of each household is determined by its total expenditures. In this paper, we decompose the difference between the standard CPI and a democratically weighted index (i.e., the CPI plutocratic gap) as the product of expenditure inequa...

In the actual rule (which we simplify somewhat in the text), Social Security taxable earnings (SSTE) are first indexed (adjusted) to reflect real dollar values by using national average wages for the year the beneficiary reaches age 60. The SSTE is also capped by a maximum value and this cap has increased over time (see Table A1). Once indexed, the 35 highest adjusted SSTE years are selected to...

This paper presents the first study of the economic effects of a citywide minimum wage—San Francisco’s adoption of an indexed minimum wage, set at $8.50 in 2004 and $9.14 by 2007. Compared to earlier benchmark studies by Card and Krueger and by Neumark and Wascher, this study surveys table-service as well as fast-food restaurants, includes more control groups, and collects data for more outcome...

Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) increasingly absorb knowledge from Hard Sciences, i.e., Science, Technology, Agriculture and Medicine (STAM), as testified by a growing number of citations. However, whether citing more Hard Sciences brings more citations to HSS remains to be investigated. Based on China's HSS articles indexed by the Web of Science during 1998-2014, this paper estimated two-...

Did global income inequality rise or fall over the past twenty years? Exchange rate comparisons suggest that inequality has risen, but the purchasing power comparisons of the Penn World Tables suggest inequality has fallen. We show that both measures are biased. Exchange rate comparisons ignore the relative price of non-tradables, whilst the Penn World Table method of calculating purchasing pow...

The Library Series of the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access quarterly in the humanities and the social sciences CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture publishes scholarship in the humanities and social sciences following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the CLCWeb Librar...