agrmt (version 1.42.12)

MRQ: Calculates MRQ polarization index

Description

This function calculates the MRQ polarization index from a population vector.

Usage

MRQ(Z)

Value

Index of polarization (RQ).

Arguments

Z

(Standardized) frequency vector

Author

Didier Ruedin

Details

This function implements the polarization index introduced by Garcia-Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005), also known as the Reynal-Querol index of polarization (RQ). It is a measure of dispersion based on squared Euclidean distances. The frequency vector needs to be standardized for the Reynal-Querol index to work; if the sum of the frequency vector is not 1 (i.e. it is not standardized), the function automatically standardizes the frequency vector by dividing each element of the vector by the sum of the vector. The assumption is that the frequencies are complete.

References

Garcia-Montalvo, Jose, and Marta Reynal-Querol. 2005. Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars. American Economic Review 95(3): 796-816.

Reynal-Querol, Marta. 2002. Ethnicity, Political Systems, and Civil Wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46(1): 29-54.

Examples

# Sample data
V <- c(30,40,210,130,530,50,10)
MRQ(V)