Grouped data in the form of income shares have conventionally been used to estimate income inequality due to the lack of individual records. We present a systematic evaluation of the performance of parametric distributions and non-parametric techniques to estimate economic inequality using more than 3300 data sets. We also provide guidance on the choice between these two approaches and their estimation, for which we develop the GB2group R package. Our results indicate that even the simplest parametric models provide reliable estimates of inequality measures. The non-parametric approach, however, fails to represent income distributions accurately.

中文翻译：

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分组数据的不等式测量：参数和非参数方法

由于缺乏个人记录，收入份额形式的分组数据通常用于估计收入不平等。我们使用 3300 多个数据集对参数分布和非参数技术的性能进行了系统评估，以估计经济不平等。我们还提供了关于这两种方法之间的选择及其估计的指导，为此我们开发了GB2group R 包。我们的结果表明，即使是最简单的参数模型也能提供对不平等措施的可靠估计。然而，非参数方法无法准确表示收入分配。