Inequality decomposition values.

Summary In this paper, the authors present a general procedure for decomposing inequality measures by income sources. The proposed methods are based on the Shapley value of cooperative games with transferable utility and on extensions of this value. The authors show, in particular, that Owen's value can be applied in this context, but also that the characterization by Hart and Mas-Collel's potential remains valid in the domain of inequality indices. Then, they propose a study of the properties of these decomposition rules and compare them with those of the decomposition rule proposed by Shorrocks.