ABSTRACT
The strong correlation with the earnings based indices gives some confidence that intersectoral income inequality might be a valid index of overall earnings inequality even though it neglects intra-sector dispersion. Correlations between a number of readily available indices of income inequality and homicide were calculated. Homicide rate is a positively accelerated function of income inequality. While a curvilinear regression might have explained somewhat more variance, it was decided to opt for the simplicity of a linear model. While that might be partly true, it might also be true that part of the shared variance is explicable in terms of income inequality causing both high homicide rates and lack of political freedom. The model, erring on the side of under-estimating the effect of income inequality, explicitly excludes the latter possibility. The correlation of 0.623 between intersectoral income inequality and homicide is statistically significant at the o.00r level.
