Corrado Gini | |
|---|---|
 Ginic. 1945 | |
| Born | (1884-05-23)May 23, 1884 |
| Died | March 13, 1965(1965-03-13) (aged 80) Rome,Italy |
| Citizenship | Italian |
| Alma mater | University of Bologna |
| Known for | Gini coefficient |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
Corrado Gini (23 May 1884 – 13 March 1965) was an Italianstatistician,demographer andsociologist who developed theGini coefficient, a measure of theincome inequality in a society. Gini was a proponent oforganicism and applied it to nations.[1] Gini was aeugenicist, and prior to and during World War II, he was an advocate ofItalian Fascism. Following the war, he founded theItalian Unionist Movement, which advocated for theannexation of Italy by the United States.[2]
Gini was born on May 23, 1884, inMotta di Livenza, nearTreviso, into an oldlanded family. He entered the Faculty of Law at theUniversity of Bologna, where in addition to law he studied mathematics, economics, and biology.
Gini's scientific work ran in two directions: towards thesocial sciences and towards statistics. His interests ranged well beyond the formal aspects of statistics—to the laws that govern biological andsocial phenomena.
His first published work wasIl sesso dal punto di vista statistico (1908). This work is a thorough review of the natalsex 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 the other sex of child is, to some extent, heritable.
He published theGini coefficient in the 1912 paperVariability and Mutability (Italian:Variabilità e mutabilità).[3][4] Also called the Gini index and the Gini ratio, it is ameasure of statistical dispersion intended to represent theincome inequality within a nation or other group.
In 1910, he acceded to the Chair of Statistics in theUniversity of Cagliari and then atPadua in 1913.
He founded the international journal of statisticsMetron in 1920,[5] directing it until his death; it only accepted articles with practical applications.[6]
In 1920 became honorary member of theRoyal Statistical Society.[5]
He became a professor at theSapienza University of Rome in 1925. At the University, he founded a lecture course on sociology, maintaining it 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 1926, he was appointed President of theCentral Institute of Statistics in Rome. This he organised as a single centre for Italian statistical services. He was a close intimate ofMussolini throughout the 20s. He resigned from his position within the institute in 1932.[7]
In 1926, he also founded the journal "Italian economic life" (La vita economica italiana), which was issued until 1943.[5]
In 1927 he published a treatise entitledThe Scientific Basis of Fascism.[8]
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.
A eugenicist apart from being a demographer, Gini led an expedition to survey Polish populations, among them theKaraites. Gini was throughout the 20s a supporter of fascism, and expressed his hope that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy would emerge as victors in WW2. However, he never supported any measure of exclusion of the Jews.[9][10]
His role in the racial and anti-Jewish policies of the regime are more sinister, according to what is explained in detail in the bookScienza e razza nell'Italia fascista byGiorgio Israel and Pietro Nastasi published by Il Mulino in Bologna in 1998.Milestones during the rest of his career include:
On October 12, 1944, Gini joined with the Calabrian activistSanti Paladino,[12] and fellow-statisticianUgo Damiani to found theItalian Unionist Movement, for which the emblem was theStars and Stripes, theItalian flag and a world map. According to the three men, the government of the United States should annex all free and democratic nations worldwide, thereby transforming itself into aworld government, and allowing Washington, D.C. to maintain Earth in a perpetual condition ofpeace. The party existed up to 1948 but had little success[2] and its aims were not supported by the United States.
Gini was a proponent oforganicism and saw nations as organic in nature.[1] Gini shared the view held byOswald Spengler that populations go through a cycle of birth, growth, and decay.[1] Gini claimed that nations at a primitive level have a highbirth rate, but, as they evolve, theupper classes birth rate drops while thelower class birth rate, while higher, will inevitably deplete as their stronger members emigrate, die in war, or enter into the upper classes.[1] If a nation continues on this path without resistance, Gini claimed the nation would enter a finaldecadent stage where the nation would degenerate as noted by decreasing birth rate, decreasing cultural output, and the lack ofimperial conquest.[13] At this point, the decadent nation with its aging population can be overrun by a more youthful and vigorous nation.[13] Gini's organicist theories of nations and natality are believed to have influenced policies ofItalian Fascism.[1]
The following honorary degrees were conferred upon him:[5]
