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Corrado Gini

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Corrado Gini (May 23, 1884 - March 13, 1965) was an Italian statistician, demographer and sociologist who developed the Gini coefficient, a measure of the income inequality in a society. Gini was also a leading fascist theorist and ideologue who wrote The Scientific Basis of Fascism in 1927.

Life

Gini was born on May 23, 1884 in Motta di Livenza, near Treviso, into an old landed family. He entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Bologna, where in addition to law he studied mathematics, economics, and biology. His subsequent scientific work ran in two directions, towards the social sciences, and towards statistics. His interests ranged well beyond the formal aspects of statistics to the laws that govern biological and social phenomena.

His first published work was, Il sesso dal punto di vista statistico (1908) This work is a thorough review of the natal sex ratio looking at past theories and at how new hypothesis fit the statistical data. In particular, it presents evidence that the tendency to produce one or other sex of child is to some extent heritable.

In 1910 he acceded to the Chair of Statistics in the University of Cagliari and then at Padua in 1913.

He founded the statistical journal Metron in 1920 which he directed until his death and which never accepted articles that did not have practical applications.

He became a professor at the University of Rome in 1925. At the University, he founded a lecture course on sociology, which he maintained until his retirement. He also set up the School of Statistics, in 1928, and, in 1936, the Faculty of Statistical, Demographic and Actuarial Sciences.

In 1929 Gini founded the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems (Comitato italiano per lo studio dei problemi della popolazione) which, two years later, organised the first Population Congress in Rome.

In 1926 he was appointed President of the Central Institute of Statistics in Rome. This he organised as a single centre for Italian statistical services. He resigned in 1932 in protest at interference in his work by the fascist state.

Later career

  • In 1933 Gini was elected vice president of the International Sociological Institute.
  • In 1934 - president of the Italian Genetics and Eugenics Society.
  • In 1935 - president of the International Federation of Eugenics Societies in Latin-language Countries.
  • In 1937 - president of the Italian Sociological Society.
  • In 1941 - president of the Italian Statistical Society.
  • In 1957 he received the Gold Medal for outstanding service to the Italian School.
  • In 1962 he was elected National Member of the Accademia dei Lincei.

Honours

The following honorary degrees were conferred upon him:

  • Economics by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan (1932),
  • Sociology by the University of Geneva (1934),
  • Sciences by Harvard University (1936),
  • Social Sciences by the University of Cordoba, Argentine (1963).

Corrado Gini died in the early hours of March 13, 1965.

Some publications

  • Il sesso dal punto di vista statistica: le leggi della produzione dei sessi (1908)
  • Sulla misura della concentrazione e della variabilità dei caratteri (1914)
  • Quelques considérations au sujet de la construction des nombres indices des prix et des questions analogues (1924)
  • Memorie di metodologia statistica. Vol.1: Variabilità e Concentrazione (1955)
  • Memorie di metodologia statistica. Vol.2: Transvariazione (1960)
  • The Scientific Basis of Fascism Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Mar., 1927), pp. 99-115 (article consists of 17 pages) At JSTOR

See also

External links

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