Resumen de Comparing distributions of ordinal data

Stephen P. Jenkins

• To compare distributions of ordinal data such as individuals’ responseson Likert-type scale variables summarizing subjective well-being, we should notapply the toolbox of methods developed for cardinal variables such as income.Instead, we should use an analogous toolbox that accounts for the ordinal natureof the responses. In this article, I review these methods and introduce a newcommand,ineqord, for undertaking distributional comparisons. As the empiricalillustrations demonstrate,ineqordcan be used for dominance checks as well as forestimation of indices of polarization and inequality.