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Activity Number:
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173
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Monday, August 3, 2009 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
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Sponsor:
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Business and Economic Statistics Section
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| Abstract - #305324 |
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Title:
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An Efficient Algorithm for the Computation of the Gini Coefficient of the Generalized Beta Distribution of the Second Kind
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Author(s):
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Monique Graf*+
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Companies:
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Swiss Federal Statistical Office
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Address:
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Espace de l'Europe 10, Neuchatel, 2010, Switzerland
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Keywords:
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Income distribution ; Gini coefficient ; GB2 distribution ; algorithm ; hypergeometric function ; R language
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Abstract:
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The analytical expression for the Gini coefficient of the Generalized Beta Distribution of the Second Kind (GB2) has been derived by McDonald (1984). The actual computation of the Gini coefficient can present numerical problems. It involves the summation of two generalized hypergeometric functions at z=1, for which a direct evaluation can lead to a very slow convergence. The proposed algorithm selects among the ten Thomae (1879) equivalent representations the one with the fastest convergence. The gain can be extremely large. The implementation has been done in the open source language R. This research is part of the project "Advanced Methodology for European Laeken Indicators" funded under FP7.
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