WEN LIMIN, LIU YU, ZHANG YI
The Gini coefficient is an important measure of income inequality. To improve the estimation accuracy of the Gini coefficient, this paper develops a Bayesian credibility estimation framework by combining sample information with prior information. By introducing a linearization approach for the population survival function and minimizing the expected weighted integrated loss function, we obtain the credibility estimator of the survival function, and then construct the credibility estimator of the Gini coefficient based on the “Plug-in” principle. Theoretical results show that the proposed estimator is consistent and asymptotically normal under large samples. In addition, simulation studies demonstrate its desirable mean squared error convergence performance in small-sample settings. Furthermore, using data from the China Household Income Project (CHIP), this paper proposes estimation methods for the hyperparameters and conducts an empirical analysis of the Gini coefficient in China. Compared with traditional estimators of the Gini coefficient, the proposed credibility estimator possesses favorable statistical properties, does not rely on specific prior distribution assumptions, and exhibits stronger robustness.