数学中国 Ww. madio. net Better Living through Math 149 Appendix We compute the economic weights C, and C- by studying the distribu- tion of wealth within the U.S. Economists often study the distribution of wealth in a country by constructing a Lorenz curve, which is the approach ve take here The Lorenz Curve the distribution of wealth or assets in a society. A Lorenz curve is obtained by plotting on the r-axis the percentage of people and on the y-axis the corresponding percentage of wealth. Thus, a point at(, y)on the Lorenz curve indicates the percentage y of total wealth that the bottom a% of People have. Figure Al shows the approximate Lorenz curve for wealth in the U.S. in 2001. The thin line with slope 1 is the line of perfect equality which corresponds to an equal distribution of wealth among individuals in 11·3⊥”41“医 )≈”),-,·/+612,, Figure Al. A Lorenz curve for wealth in the US. (bold)appmximated using data from 2001, along with the Line of perfect equality(thin A Lorenz curve has properties useful in approximating it: It begins at(0, 0)and ends at(1,1), cannot rise above the line of perfect equality, is increasing, and The Lorenz Curve for the U.s We approximate the Lorenz curve for the U.S. using data from 2001.We display in Table Al the data from Wolff [2004]数学中国ww.madio.net