Just to say I have read the book (it arrived on my doormat Saturday and I was lecturing on it today). I imagine there will be a deafening silence from official spokespeople - the kind of equalities the government promises were never intended to deal with the inequalities described in the book. Effective policy might entail progressive taxation with people at the top obliged to pay. That would never do!
I too must say that the authors were not well-advised on the graphics - others have suggested how a good compromise might have been struck between popular understanding and meeting the needs of the more technically adept.

Met a colleague on the station today who said that he had given sets of similar international data for a group of sociology students to work on - they nearly all managed to spot the connection between inequality and health/social problems. In the discussion that followed they discovered they had all drawn similar conclusions. But, they said, the UK can't be that bad. So, they shrugged, all the correlations must be just co-incidences. They weren't joking.


Robert



Professor Robert Moore
School of Sociology and Social Policy
Eleanor Rathbone Building
The University of Liverpool
L69 7ZA

Telephone and fax: 44 (0) 1352 714456
________________________________________
From: email list for Radical Statistics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Galbraith [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 23 March 2009 16:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Equality figures

Dear Kate,
Thank you for the information below. I have some further questions:

1. What are the lines drawn on the graphs? On some graphs they could be
the regression lines of Y (whatever) on X (income inequality), but on the
mental illness vs income inequality graph it is clearly not the regression
line. What is it?

2. Looking at the Infant deaths vs Income Inequality graph, it does not
look as if you have plotted the 20:20 measure of income inequality. From
the "Notes on the statistical sources used in the Spirit Level" the
distance between UK (about 7) and US (about 8) should be about 1 unit and
between UK and Sweden (<4) should be over 3 units. But on my printout the
ratio is something under 2 rather than something over 3. Is this just that
the factors 7, 8 and <4 are very approximate or is there another
explanation?
Please could you explain.
Had values been marked on the axis I might have been able to answer the
question without bothering you.

Maybe you could consider revising the information on the Equality Trust
website so that
1. the measure of income inequality is stated explicitly for each graph
and some values marked on the horizontal axis (I would like to know at
least the range of values)
2. the line on each graph is explained
Also
3. Clearly the several measures compared with income inequality are
themselves highly correlated, a matrix scatterplot would be a great aid to
examining the multi-way relationships.

Finally I think you were badly advised not to include decent graphs. I
look forward to reading your book, which is timely and important, but am
slightly put off by the thought that I shall fume when I try to get
information from the figures!

Best wishes.
Jane



Could you put it on the Equlity Trust website?
> Kate Pickett sent the very helpful email below
> Best
> Diana
> Professor Diana Kornbrot
> email:  [log in to unmask]
> web:    http://web.mac.com/kornbrot/iweb/KornbrotHome.html
> Work
> School of Psychology
>  University of Hertfordshire
>  College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK
>    voice:   +44 (0) 170 728 4626
>    fax:     +44 (0) 170 728 5073
> Home
>  19 Elmhurst Avenue
>  London N2 0LT, UK
>     voice:   +44 (0) 208 883  3657
>     mobile: +44 (0) 796 890 2102
>     fax:      +44 (0) 870 706 4997
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
>> From: Kate Pickett <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:50:55 +0000
>> To: Diana Kornbrot <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Data request
>>
>
>> Dear Diana,
>>
>> For the all of our international comparisons we use the 20:20 ratio - we
>> take
>> the average of the ratios reported in the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 UN
>> Human
>> Development Reports (there is some variation in the dates these measures
>> were
>> made, rather than reported).  We do include a few charts from other
>> people
>> that use other measures but ours are consistent.  For the US comparisons
>> we
>> use the state-level Gini coefficient based on household income produced
>> by the
>> US census bureau.
>>
>> Best wishes, Kate
>> Kate E Pickett, PhD
>> Department of Health Sciences
>> University of York
>> (01904) 321377
>>
>>
>>
>> kornbrot wrote:
>>>  Re: Data request Thanks
>>> Appreciate the pressure you are under ­ from success, and will where
>>> necessary find the websites [given in references bit not in resources]
>>> myself
>>> Although you clearly explain the different measures of inequality you
>>> might
>>> use, you do not state which one[s] you actually use.
>>> Which index  of  inequality is/are used?
>>> Is index of  inequality the same for all the graphs ?
>>> Other mebers of radstats, are also keen to know
>>>
>>> Your help is much appreciated
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> Diana
>>>
>>>
>>> On 20/03/2009 19:38, "Kate Pickett" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear Professor Kornbrot,
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for your interest in The Equality Trust, and our work on the
>>>> impact on inequality.  All of the data we use in our book, The Spirit
>>>> Level, and in the charts available on the website, are publicly
>>>> available.  The sources are listed in the book, and on the website -
>>>> under the tab Why More Equality, then The Evidence, and then
>>>> Statistical
>>>> Sources and Methods.  As we are receiving a large volume of data
>>>> requests (all for different data!), I'm afraid we don't have the
>>>> resources to produce customized datasets - but accessing the data we
>>>> use
>>>> is very straightforward.
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>> Kate
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Kate E Pickett, PhD
>>>> Department of Health Sciences
>>>> University of York
>>>> (01904) 321377
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>  Professor Diana Kornbrot
>>>  email:  [log in to unmask]
>>>  web:    http://web.mac.com/kornbrot/iweb/KornbrotHome.html
>>>  Work
>>>  School of Psychology
>>>  University of Hertfordshire
>>>  College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK
>>>     voice:   +44 (0) 170 728 4626
>>>    fax:     +44 (0) 170 728 5073
>>>  Home
>>>  19 Elmhurst Avenue
>>>  London N2 0LT, UK
>>>     voice:   +44 (0) 208 883  3657
>>>     mobile: +44 (0) 796 890 2102
>>>      fax:      +44 (0) 870 706 4997
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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--
Mrs Jane Galbraith
Honorary Research Associate
Department of Statistical Science
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

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