Empirical likelihood confidence intervals for the Gini measure of income inequality

Gini coefficient is among the most popular and widely used measures of income inequality in economic studies, with various extensions and applications in finance and other related areas. This paper studies confidence intervals on the Gini coefficient for simple random samples, using normal approximation, bootstrap percentile, bootstrap-t and the empirical likelihood method. Through both theory and simulation studies it is shown that the intervals based on normal or bootstrap approximation are less satisfactory for samples of small or moderate size than the bootstrap-calibrated empirical likelihood ratio confidence intervals which perform well for all sample sizes. Results for stratified random sampling are also presented.