The goal of this seminar is to address conceptual issues in the measurement of income inequality from both a philosophical and an empirical perspective. The course will reflect on and discuss several methodological choices made in the empirical measurement of inequality, including the precise definition of income used, the definition of the population studied, and the measure of inequality chosen. These choices are often made without much reflection on their implications, although they have important consequences for the empirical results obtained and their interpretation. The seminar will present statistical tools that are important in socio-economic research for analyzing inequality data, as well as the mathematical properties of different inequality measures. More than just presenting the exact mathematical definition, the course aims to provide a deeper understanding of the different inequality measures and why they are defined as they are. These conceptual and abstract issues will be made more concrete by analyzing the measurement of global inequality, and recent developments in the study of global income inequality will be discussed in depth. The seminar will also provide students with practical guidance on how to conduct systematic literature reviews. As a form of assessment, students will conduct a systematic literature review on a topic of their choice related to economic inequality.
Assignments:
Studienleistung: A filled out pre-registration form for the term paper (due May 26, 2025) and a presentation of the term paper (July 7 or 14, 2025).
Prüfungsleistung: Term paper of about 10 pages (systematic literature review). Deadline: First draft: July 7, 2025. Final version: September 30, 2025
- verantwortliche Lehrperson: Arthur Zito Guerriero