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Disparities in socio-economic outcomes: some positive propositions and their normative implications

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  • Peter Lambert

  • S. Subramanian

Abstract

Demographic disparities between the rates of occurrence of an adverse economic outcome can be observed to be increasing even as general social improvements supposedly lead towards the elimination of the adverse outcome in question. Scanlan (Chance 19(2):47–51, 2006 ) noticed this tendency and developed a ‘heuristic rule’ to explain it. In this paper, we explore the issue analytically, providing a criterion from stochastic ordering theory under which one of two demographic groups can be considered disadvantaged and the other advantaged, and showing that Scanlan’s heuristic obtains as a rigorous finding in such cases. Normative implications and appropriate social policy are discussed. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Lambert & S. Subramanian, 2014. "Disparities in socio-economic outcomes: some positive propositions and their normative implications," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(3), pages 565-576, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:43:y:2014:i:3:p:565-576
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-014-0794-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931.
    2. Le Breton, Michel & Michelangeli, Alessandra & Peluso, Eugenio, 2012. "A stochastic dominance approach to the measurement of discrimination," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1342-1350.
    3. Edward N. Wolff, 1976. "Occupational Earnings Behavior And The Inequality Of Earnings By Sex And Race In The United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 22(2), pages 151-166, June.
    4. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
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    Cited by:

    1. Marc Fleurbaey & Peter Lambert & Domenico Moramarco & Vito Peragine, 2024. "Within-group inequality: a comparison of different definitions and a new proposal of decomposition," SERIES 04-2024, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", revised Sep 2024.
    2. Niels-Jakob Harbo Hansen & Karl Harmenberg & Erik Öberg & Hans Henrik Sievertsen, 2021. "Gender disparities in top earnings: measurement and facts for Denmark 1980-2013," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(2), pages 347-362, June.
    3. Hoben Thomas & Thomas P. Hettmansperger, 2017. "Risk ratios and Scanlan’s HRX," Journal of Statistical Distributions and Applications, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-15, December.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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