Studies on Regional Wealth Inequalities: the Case of Italy

The paper contains a short review of techniques examining regional wealth inequalities based on recently published research work, but also presenting unpublished features. The data pertains to Italy (IT), over the period 2007-2011: the number of cities in regions, the num- ber of inhabitants in cities and in regions, as well as the aggregated tax income of the cities and of regions. Frequency-size plots and cumulative distribution function plots, scatter plots and rank-size plots are displayed. The rank-size rule of a few cases is discussed. Yearly data of the aggre- gated tax income is transformed into a few indicators: the Gini, Theil, and Herndahl-Hirschman indices. Numerical results conrm that IT is divided into very dierent regional realities. One region is selected for a short discussion: Molise. A note on the "first digit Benford law" for testing data validity is presented.