Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: We revisit Esteban and Ray's (1994) seminal model of polarization. Their main result (unnecessarily) relies on the assumption that individuals are infinitely divisible, which imposes strong restrictions on admissible polarization indices. We show that relaxing this assumption yields a broader family of indices consistent with the original axioms. The resulting indices avoid counter-intuitive rankings that arise when using results on the original paper and provide greater flexibility for empirical applications.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Crespo, Juan A., Raventós-Pujol, Armajac
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G3035757099, G3313619270, G742462797
OpenAlex ID: W7106713450