Majorization and the Lorenz order: a brief introduction (Q1105944): Difference between revisions

The book consists of seven chapters and deals with some concepts of partial ordering known in the literature as majorization and Lorenz ordering, treating the latter as a generalization of the former. It is designed to give an introduction to the material rather than a treatise on it and to stimulate the reader to pursue further various topics in other sources. The inequality orderings are discussed in the context of income distributions (although often this context is abandoned in favour of mathematical statements) and the theorems are stated in generality. Chapter 1 provides an account of the origination, multifaceted manifestation and treatment of the concept of majorization by various authors from the early accessible English language literature to 1979. The aim is to help the reader to establish the temporal sequence of the development of the various key ideas and not to provide an exhaustive bibliography on the subject. For such a detailed bibliography the author refers to \textit{A. W. Marshall} and \textit{I. Olkin}'s book, ``Inequalities: theory of majorization and its applications.'' (1979; Zbl 0437.26007). Chapter 2 discusses the concept of majorization on the entire n- dimensional Euclidean space whenever it becomes possible to drop Hardy, Littlewood and Polya's restriction on the positive orthant. Chapter 3 looks at the utilization of the Lorenz order in the space of distribution functions. The domains of definitions are extended in one direction while restricted to another direction as the distributions considered are of general nature rather than discrete but with a support on the non-negative real numbers and with finite expectations. Some equivalent conditions for majorization in the n-dimensional Euclidean space given in chapter 2 are extended to deal with the Lorenz partial order on non-negative integrable random variables. Again in the context of income distribution analysis whereby observed income distributions are modified by means of intervention in the economic process, chapter 4 centers on transformations of distributions and their effects on the Lorenz order. Specifically, it treats the case of two classes of transformations mapping the positive orthant of the n- dimensional space into itself which preserve or attenuate inequality. Chapter 5 considers the problem of extending the concepts of majorization and the Lorenz order in the multivariate case and looks for the possibility of developing stochastic versions of majorization. Chapter 6 discusses the relationships of several partial orderings closely related to the Lorenz ordering with majorization. It also explores the relationship of majorization to stochastic dominance. Finally, chapter 7 concludes the subjects by providing several applications of the concept of majorization in a number of fields as diverse as reliability, genetics, ecology and forecasting. With the topics in the various chapters sufficiently supplemented by exercises this one hundred and twenty two page book constitutes both a useful source of knowledge to the graduate student and a helpful introduction into the material to the interested reader.