Social networks and experienced inequality

Mamunuru, Sai Madhurika and Shrivastava, Anand and Jayadev, Arjun (2025) Social networks and experienced inequality. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 229. p. 106799. ISSN 01672681

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Abstract

Traditional measures of inequality, such as the Gini coefficient, involve pairwise comparisons across all members of a population, but in reality most people have information about, and thus experience inequality relative to, only a subset of that population. In this paper we present simple axioms to characterise inequality as it is experienced within social networks and propose an index to measure aggregate experienced inequality that aligns with these axioms. We then calculate both the conventional Gini coefficient and our ‘experienced inequality’ measure in 75 villages in Karnataka, India, and demonstrate that, for a given wealth distribution, the structure of the social network can either amplify or attenuate experienced inequality. We show this first analytically and then empirically with respect to two network properties: wealth‑based homophily, which is negatively associated with experienced inequality, and caste‑based homophily, which is negatively associated with experienced inequality when within‑caste inequality is lower than the overall Gini coefficient but positively associated when it is higher.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Mamunuru, Sai Madhurika and Shrivastava, Anand and Jayadev, Arjun
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Social sciences Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Groups of people Social sciences > Groups of people Social sciences > Economics
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	None
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6892
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106799

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