Comparing Polarization Measures

This article reviews and compares different measures of polarization within a unifying framework. A country can be highly unequal in income and wealth, but it might not be highly polarized in economic terms. Conversely, a country can be considered economically equal, but nonetheless highly polarized, if there are two distinct, though not too distant, income groups facing one another. Similar comments apply to other ethnic or religious measures of fragmentation. The discussion focuses on unidimensional polarization, the leading example being income polarization.