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A dominance approach to the appraisal of the distribution of well-being across countries

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  • Muller, Christophe
  • Trannoy, Alain

Abstract

This paper proposes a dominance approach to study inequality of well-being across countries. We consider a class of well-being indices based on the three attributes used in the HDI (Human Development Index). Indices are required to satisfy: preference for egalitarian marginal distributions of income, health and education, ALEP substitution of attributes and priority to poor countries in allocating funds to enhance health and education. We exhibit sufficient conditions for checking dominance over the defined class of well-being indices. We apply our method to country data from 2000 to 2005. The deterioration in health conditions in poor countries is why welfare improvements at the world level cannot be ascertained.

Suggested Citation

  • Muller, Christophe & Trannoy, Alain, 2011. "A dominance approach to the appraisal of the distribution of well-being across countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 239-246.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:3:p:239-246
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.10.012
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    Cited by:

    1. Gravel, Nicolas & Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Ethically robust comparisons of bidimensional distributions with an ordinal attribute," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1384-1426.
    2. Elettra Agliardi & Mehmet Pinar & Thanasis Stengos, 2015. "An environmental degradation index based on stochastic dominance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 439-459, February.
    3. Christophe Muller & Asha Kannan & Roland Alcindor, 2016. "Multidimensional Poverty in Seychelles," Working Papers halshs-01264444, HAL.
    4. Arndt, Channing & Distante, Roberta & Hussain, M. Azhar & Østerdal, Lars Peter & Huong, Pham Lan & Ibraimo, Maimuna, 2012. "Ordinal Welfare Comparisons with Multiple Discrete Indicators: A First Order Dominance Approach and Application to Child Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2290-2301.
    5. Christoffer Sonne-Schmidt & Finn Tarp & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2016. "Ordinal Bivariate Inequality: Concepts and Application to Child Deprivation in Mozambique," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(3), pages 559-573, September.
    6. John E. Roemer & Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Equality of Opportunity: Theory and Measurement," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1288-1332, December.
    7. M. Azhar Hussain & Nikolaj Siersbæk & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2020. "Multidimensional welfare comparisons of EU member states before, during, and after the financial crisis: a dominance approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(4), pages 645-686, December.
    8. Sonne-Schmidt, Christoffer & Tarp, Finn & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "Ordinal Multidimensional Inequality," WIDER Working Paper Series 097, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Asis Banerjee, 2014. "A multidimensional Lorenz dominance relation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(1), pages 171-191, January.
    10. Channing Arndt & Nikolaj Siersbæk, & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2015. "Multidimensional first-order dominance comparisons of population wellbeing," WIDER Working Paper Series 122, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Christophe Muller, 2019. "Social Shock Sharing and Stochastic Dominance," Working Papers halshs-02005735, HAL.
    12. Arndt, Channing & Distante, Roberta & Hussain, M. Azhar & Østerdal, Lars Peter & Huong, Pham Lan & Ibraimo, Maimuna, 2012. "Ordinal Welfare Comparisons with Multiple Discrete Indicators: A First Order Dominance Approach and Application to Child Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2290-2301.
    13. Muller, Christophe & Trannoy, Alain, 2012. "Multidimensional inequality comparisons: A compensation perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1427-1449.
    14. Nicholas Rohde & Ross Guest, 2013. "Multidimensional Racial Inequality in the United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 591-605, November.
    15. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Vassilis Tselios, 2019. "Well-being, Political Decentralisation and Governance Quality in Europe," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 69-93, January.
    16. Marling, Tina Gottschalk & Range, Troels Martin & Sudhölter, Peter & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2018. "Decomposing bivariate dominance for social welfare comparisons," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 1-8.
    17. Nicholas Rohde & Ross Guest, 2018. "Multidimensional Inequality Across Three Developed Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(3), pages 576-591, September.
    18. Sevinc Rende & Murat Donduran, 2013. "Neighborhoods in Development: Human Development Index and Self-organizing Maps," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 721-734, January.
    19. Christoffer Sonne-Schmidt & Finn Tarp & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2013. "Ordinal Multidimensional Inequality," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-097, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Thi Kim Thanh Bui & Guido Erreygers, 2020. "Multidimensional Inequality in Vietnam, 2002–2012," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-31, April.
    21. Sonne-Schmidt, Christoffer & Tarp, Finn & Peter, Lars, 2011. "Ordinal multidimensional inequality: theory and application to the 2x2 case," MPRA Paper 72838, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-36 is not listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Multidimensioned welfare; Stochastic dominance; Human Development Index;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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