Segregation, Informativeness and Lorenz Dominance

Abstract: It is possible to partially order cities according to the informativeness of neighborhoods about their ethnic groups. It is also possible to partially order cities with two ethnic groups according to the Lorenz criterion. We show that a segregation order satisfies four well-established segregation principles if and only if it is consistent with the informativeness criterion. We then use this result to show that for the two-group case, the Lorenz and the informativeness criteria are equivalent.

Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C43, C81, D63.

Keywords: Segregation, informativeness, Lorenz dominance, Blackwell’s theorem.