Re: On Ginis and 1947-1998 US Ginis

: Doug Henwood gives some data on GINI and the following is on the
comparison of that with the Theil Index.
According to Branko Milanovic of the World Bank, the following
countries had ginis >0.500 in 1993:
The Theil Index is given for some of the countries. It is best to look at
http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/
for the explanation of the index and how it is calculated.
                      GINI                   Theil
                                          1993              1994
Brazil            0.590       0.041593      0.055437
Paraguay     0.569        no data
Lesotho        0.565         no data
Chile             0.564      0.022818       0.03463
Panama       0.559        no data
Honduras     0.546       0.043474       0.046088
Senegal       0.519         no data
Mexico         0.519        0.050328      0.05068
Zambia        0.513         no data
El Salvador 0.504         no data
Bolivia         0.502        0.072969        0.099462

The correlation of the 1993 data is -0.754496397.
The following countries are given for the same two years for comparison.
 US                                 0.033213        0.036616
 UK                                 no data
France                           0.030932
Kuwait                            0.332662         0.400462
Algeria                           0.007088          0.007088

Cuba comes out the lowest in the year 1988 at 0.003168. The highest is for
Kuwait for the year 1995 at 0.626549.
Comparing the Theil Index with the GINI Index given by Emilio.
 US             1972             0.023997         0.463
                    1973             0.024699         0.456
                     1974             0.025777         0.449
                    1975             0.025642         0.455
                    1976             0.028131         0.455
                    1977             0.029368         0.458
                    1978             0.028644         0.461
                    1979             0.027796         0.463
                    1980             0.028769         0.466
                    1981             0.029358         0.469
                    1982             0.030141         0.485
                    1983             0.030042         0.492
                    1984             0.029702         0.490
                    1985             0.029576         0.496
                    1986             0.029382         0.497
                    1987             0.027752         0.501
                    1988             0.02937           0.504
                    1989             0.028643         0.507
                    1990             0.028144         0.507
                    1991             0.028275         0.512
                    1992             0.029752         0.518
                    1993             0.033213         0.537
                    1994             0.036616         0.535

The correlation coefficient is 0.711074.
Either way, GINI or Theil, the concentration of wealth is a measure of an
economy, but embarrassing by the look of it.
William Kirk.