Putting the cart before the horse. A comment on Wagstaff on inequality measurement in the presence of binary variables

Adam Wagstaff's (2011) recent paper sends a strong reminder that binary variables occur frequently in health inequality studies and that it is important to examine whether the standard measurement tools can be applied without any modification when the health variable happens to be binary. In his note, he reconsiders what he wrote previously on the subject (Wagstaff, 2005), in the light of recent work on bounded variables (Clarke et al., 2002; Erreygers, 2009a, 2009b; Wagstaff, 2009; Erreygers and Van Ourti, 2011). Although Wagstaff's contribution undoubtedly enriches a much-needed debate, crucial aspects of his paper seriously misrepresent the positions and views set forth in Erreygers and Van Ourti (2011). In this note, we would like to put the record straight, focusing on five specific points.

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