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2. World Bank Indicators
3. Atkinson, A(1)

Atkinson, A(1)

Atkinson (1970) proposed this class of inequality measures with a weighting parameter ε which measures aversion to inequality. As ε rises, the index becomes more sensitive to transfers at the lower end of the distribution and less sensitive to transfers at the top. The limit case, ε→0, the index reflects the Function of Rawls which only takes account of transfers to the very lowest income group; at the other extreme, when ε=0, we obtain the linear utility function. This ranks distributions solely according to total income.