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Aversion to inequality in Italy and its determinants

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Author Info

  • Vincenzo Atella

    ()

  • J. Coggins
  • Federico Perali

    ()

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 that tend to favor less equity. Results also show that preferences towards equity have changed across the years.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY in its series CHILD Working Papers with number wp03_03.

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Length: 32 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2002
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpc:wplist:wp03_03

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Keywords: inequity; equity; welfare; social function;

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References

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  3. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter, 2004. "Interpersonal Comparisons Of Well-Being," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 711, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  4. d'Aspremont, Claude & Gevers, Louis, 1977. "Equity and the Informational Basis of Collective Choice," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 199-209, June.
  5. Di Tella, Rafael & Alesina, Alberto & MacCulloch, Robert, 2004. "Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and Americans Different?," Scholarly Articles 4553007, Harvard University Department of Economics.
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  9. Hirschman, Albert O., 1973. "The changing tolerance for income inequality in the course of economic development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 1(12), pages 29-36, December.
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  17. Vincenzo Atella & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2003. "Estimation of Unit Values in Cross Sections without Quantity Information and Implications for Demand and Welfare Analysis," CEIS Research Paper 12, Tor Vergata University, CEIS.
  18. Amiel, Yoram & Creedy, John & Hurn, Stan, 1999. " Measuring Attitudes towards Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(1), pages 83-96, March.
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  21. Jay S. Coggins & Federico Perali, 2000. "Voting For Equity: Estimating Society'S Preferences Toward Inequality," CHILD Working Papers wp04_00, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
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Cited by:
  1. BARGAIN Olivier & DOLLS Mathias & NEUMANN Dirk & PEICHL Andreas & SIEGLOCH Sebastian, 2011. "Tax-Benefit Systems in Europe and the US: Between Equity and Efficiency," CEPS/INSTEAD Working Paper Series 2011-11, CEPS/INSTEAD.

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