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Aversion to Inequality in Italy and its Determinants

Author

Listed:
  • Vincenzo Atella

    (University of Rome II - Faculty of Economics)

  • Jay S. Coggins

    (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Department of Applied Economics)

  • Federico Perali

    (University of Verona - Department of Economics)

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to estimate the preferences of the Italian society towards equity in order to verify whether preferences i) have changed across the years, and ii) can be related to specific sociodemographic characteristics. Introducing equity concerns in the implementation of economic policies is a fundamental problem faced by both economists and policy makers. This paper uses a social welfare function a la Jorgenson and Slesnick to estimate society's aversion towards inequality by implementing a voting scheme for compiling individuals' equity preferences into a social choice by majority rule. The results show that preferences are highly polarized toward a low and a high concern for equity aversion and that this concern is significantly related with several sociodemographic characteristics. Among them, income plays an important role with richer people tending to favor less equity. Results also show that preferences towards equity have changed across the years.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincenzo Atella & Jay S. Coggins & Federico Perali, 2004. "Aversion to Inequality in Italy and its Determinants," CEIS Research Paper 56, Tor Vergata University, CEIS.
    • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:56
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Olivier Bargain & Mathias Dolls & Dirk Neumann & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2011. "Tax-Benefit Systems in Europe and the US: Between Equity and Efficiency," CESifo Working Paper Series 3534, CESifo.
    2. Piera Mazzoleni & Elisa Pagani & Federico Perali, 2019. "The curvature properties of social welfare functions," Working Papers 493, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Piera Mazzoleni & Elisa Pagani & Federico Perali, 2023. "On the Curvature Properties of “Long” Social Welfare Functions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-14, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household Behavior ; Economic Welfare; Personal Income and Wealth Distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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