paf2: The decomposed PaF income polarization index

In DER: Income Polarization Index

The decomposed PaF income polarization index

Description

The decomposed PaF income polarization index

Usage

paf2(y, a, ncores = 1)

Arguments

y	A numeric vector with income data.
a	The value of \alpha. This can either be a number or a vector with many values. In any case, the \alpha may take values between 0.25 and 1.
ncores	The number of cores to use. If greater than 1, parallel computing will take place. It is advisable to use it if you have many observations and or many variables, otherwise it will slow down the process. The default is 1, meaning that code is executed serially.

Details

The function compute the decomposed PaF index of Duclos, Esteban and Ray (2004) for either a specific value, or for a range of values, of \alpha. The decomposition is with respect to the deprivation and surplus components as suggested by Araar (2008).

Value

For a single value of \alpha, the function returns a vector with the PaF index, the deprivation and the surplus components. If a range of values of \alpha are given, it will return a matrix with the same components, where each row corresponds to a specific value of \alpha.

Author(s)

Michail Tsagris and Christos Adam.

R implementation and documentation: Michail Tsagris [e-mail] and Christos Adam [e-mail].

References

Araar A. (2008). On the Decomposition of Polarization Indices: Illustrations with Chinese and Nigerian Household Surveys. CIRPEE Working Paper No. 08-06. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1136142

Duclos J. Y., Esteban, J. and Ray D. (2004). Polarization: concepts, measurement, estimation. Econometrica, 72(6): 1737–1772.

See Also

colpafs2, paf

Examples

y <- rgamma(100, 10, 0.01)
paf(y, 0.25)
paf2( y, 0.25)

DER documentation built on Nov. 13, 2025, 1:07 a.m.