A Review of Old and New Methodology for Distribution Research

Attempts to measure distribution changes have fallen into categories: measures of personal income or wealth distribution called personal distribution and measures of returns to factors of production called functional distribution. Specific measures of personal distribution consist of the traditional formula measures (Gini, Pareta, etc.) and the more recent use of functional measures or estimations (Beta, Gama, etc.) Functional distribution research utilizes production functions and other output models to measure changes either quantiles of income or in formula or functional measures. Evaluation of the various distribution measures depends upon the requirements of the specific research task. Care must be taken to temper the analysis with non-operational structural impacts. Future problems will be the "old" problems, such as the definition of inequality, as they relate to new areas of research