Use of the Lorenz Curve and Gini Index in School Finance Research.

This paper proposes two modifications of the Lorenz technique for measuring inequalities in financing education. One is to order expenditures (and tax rates) by district fiscal ability before calculating the cumulative percentages. It is possible, as a result, to get a Lorenz curve that crosses the diagonal line, which gives some useful insights. The other is to calculate Gini coefficients for both expenditures and tax rates and to consider the sum of the two coefficients to be a measure of the total inequality in the system. (Author)