A new inequality estimate for urban India?: Using house prices to estimate inequality in Mumbai

A.G.M.J. Rongen

A new inequality estimate for urban India? Using house prices to estimate inequality in Mumbai

Economics

Research output: Working paper / Preprint › Working paper › Academic

Abstract

This paper applies a novel inequality estimation method to household consumption expenditure in Mumbai, India. Since the richest households may be missing in survey data, this re-estimated inequality figure takes them into account by combining survey data with house price data. However, application of this method does not indicate that the survey-based Gini coefficient of 0.447 underestimates consumption inequality in Mumbai; none of the ten investigated scenarios
yields a higher estimate. Further analyses are necessary to assess the robustness of estimates and the usefulness of applying this method to the whole of urban India.

Original language	English
Number of pages	14
Publication status	Published - Dec 2018

Publication series

Name	WIDER Working Paper
Publisher	UNU-WIDER
No.	181/2018

Keywords

Inequality
India
Top incomes
House prices

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/new-inequality-estimate-urban-india

Persistent URL (handle)

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Cite this

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abstract = "This paper applies a novel inequality estimation method to household consumption expenditure in Mumbai, India. Since the richest households may be missing in survey data, this re-estimated inequality figure takes them into account by combining survey data with house price data. However, application of this method does not indicate that the survey-based Gini coefficient of 0.447 underestimates consumption inequality in Mumbai; none of the ten investigated scenariosyields a higher estimate. Further analyses are necessary to assess the robustness of estimates and the usefulness of applying this method to the whole of urban India. ",

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