gini.coef: Calculate the Gini Coefficient

In dplR: Dendrochronology Program Library in R

Calculate the Gini Coefficient

Description

This function calculates the Gini coefficient on raw or detrended ring-width series.

Usage

gini.coef(x)

Arguments

x	a numeric vector

Details

This calculates the Gini coefficient of inequality which is used as an all-lag measure of diversity in tree-ring records – typically detrended series. Lower values indicate lower diversity. The use of the Gini coefficient in dendrochronology is described by Biondi and Qeadan (2008). See Handcock and Morris (1999) for more information.

Value

the Gini coefficient.

Note

The equivalence between the Lorenz-curve formula used in the C code and the relative-mean-difference definition of the Gini coefficient is derived in the vignette: vignette("math-dplR", package = "dplR").

Author(s)

Mikko Korpela, based on original by Andy Bunn

References

Biondi, F. and Qeadan, F. (2008) Inequality in Paleorecords. Ecology, 89(4), 1056–1067.

Handcock, M. S. and Morris, M. (1999) Relative Distribution Methods in the Social Sciences. Springer. ISBN: 0-387-98778-9.

See Also

rwl.stats

Examples

library(utils)
data(ca533)
ca533.rwi <- detrend(rwl = ca533, method = "ModNegExp")
ca533.crn <- chron(ca533.rwi)
gini.coef(ca533.crn)

dplR documentation built on Oct. 1, 2026, 9:07 a.m.