期刊名称：Discussion Papers / Ibero America Institute for Economic Research (IAI)
出版年度：2007
卷号：2007
出版社：Ibero America Institute for Economic Research
摘要：In this paper we analyze the world´s cross-national distribution of income and
its evolution from 1970 to 2003. We argue that modeling this distribution by a
finite mixture and investigating its number of components has advantages over
nonparametric inference concerning the number of modes. In particular, the
number of components of the distribution does not depend on the scale chosen
(original or logarithmic), whereas the number of modes does. Instead of
so-called twin-peaks, we find that the distribution appears to have only two
components in 1970-1975, but consists of three components from 1976 onwards, a
low, average and high mean-income group, with group means diverging over time.
Here we apply recently developed modified likelihood ratio tests for the number
of components in a finite mixture. The intra distributional dynamics are
investigated in detail using posterior probability estimates.
关键词：cross-national income distribution; mixture models; modified likelihood ratio
test; nonparametric density estimation
