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The Perspective through Gini risks of bilateral “Open Skies” agree- We find, in the first table, that consid-
The Gini index, when compared to ments. Interpreting Gini from such a erably fewer US airports serve intra-
more conventional indices of concen- geopolitical point of view, however, state air traffic as compared to EU
tration such as the Herfindahl Index, requires decomposing the index fur- domestic (within the nation state). The
has distinguished itself for being par- ther into finer layers of traffic distri- difference in concentrations for such
ticularly useful when measuring traf- butions that are particularly relevant traffic is not statistically significant
fic distributions inside airline net- to each policy perspective. The most between both geographical areas. This
works. One of its salient features is obvious dimensions that come to empirical finding confirms the lack of
that it reacts quite well to changes in mind are domestic routes (which sensitivity of Gini to the size or dis-
all parts of its population rather than would correspond to intra-state routes tance distributions between territories
only its most important ones. The reg- in the US), routes between the differ- for each geographical area. However,
ularly observed unequal, log-like dis- ent EU member states against traffic when factoring in distance (see ASM),
tribution of airline networks is quite connecting states in the US, and long- sensitivity becomes more important:
well accommodated by Gini. distance or intercontinental on both with a 90 percent confidence interval,
Although one may argue about the continents. These first results already we can conclude that such traffic is
proper units of analysis when using show striking differences. spatially more concentrated under the
the index (some tend to favor passen-
Table 1: Spatial concentration in Europe versus the US for different route-types
gers or number of aircraft movements,
others choose available seat capacity),
the adequacy of Gini for measuring
traffic concentration across airports is
not challenged. In that sense, compar-
ing spatial concentration in Europe
against that of the US may be a worth-
while exercise. The analysis might be
performed more properly when avail-
able-seat-miles (ASM) is used as the
unit of analysis to account for general
differences in distances within both
geographical areas.