Is there room for a corporate version of the Gini index?

SIX years ago, as a postgraduate researcher at Henley Business School - part of the University of Reading in the United Kingdom - Filipe Morais believed he had hit on a capital idea to promote income equality.

In a paper for the International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, he suggested developing a framework to link a company's internal Gini coefficient with national Gini coefficients. "Ideally, companies with a reputation of fairness could see sales increase or could attract talent for which fairness is important," he said.

Today Dr Morais is a lecturer in governance at the Henley Business School and he is disappointed that his idea has not gained traction.