A new inequality index?

Abstract

This article aims to motivate the debate on methods of measuring income inequality and poverty to compare regions in a country (or to compare selected countries). It is a criticism of an article published in volume 2 of the Brazilian Journal of Social and Labour Economics. The modification of the Gini index proposed by Esparza et al. (2020) involves arbitrary and unjustified definitions. There are already established methods, such as the generalized Lorenz curves, to compare the distribution of income in several regions without the analysis being limited to their inequality.