A three components subgroup decomposition of the Hirschman-Herfindahl index and household's income inequalities in Cameroon

Abstract

This research proposes a new subgroup decomposition of the Hirschman-Herfindahl index (or half the square of the coefficient of variation) into three components: the within group, the net between group and the transvariational (or overlapping) between group. The approach here is similar to the one used by Dagum (1997a, b) when decomposing the Gini index. This method is applied to analyse the incomes inequalities in the distribution of income among Cameroonian households according to their matrimonial status.

Acknowledgement

I am very grateful to Stéphane Mussard for multiple remarks and orientations on the previous versions of this work.

Notes

¹ One can find a suitable summary of C. Dagum's decomposition of the Gini index in Mussard et al. (2002b).

² Transvariational comes from ‘transvariazione’ which is the term used by C. Gini in 1916.