Bootstrap Inference for Inequality, Mobility and Poverty Measurement

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of the bootstrap for the most commonly applied procedures in inequality, mobility and poverty measurement. In addition to simple inequality index estimation the scenarios considered are inequality difference tests for correlated data, decompositions by subgrup or income source, decompositions of inequalty changes, and mobility- and poverty index estimation. Besides showing the consistency of the bootstrap for these scanarios, the paper also develops simple ways to deal with longitudinal correlation and panel attrition or non-response