IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eme/reinzz/s1049-2585(08)16002-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Inequality and envy

In: Inequality and Opportunity: Papers from the Second ECINEQ Society Meeting

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Cowell
  • Udo Ebert

Abstract

Our purpose is to examine the “envy” within the context of income inequality measurement. We use a simple axiomatic structure that takes into account “envy” in the income distribution. The concept of envy incorporated here concerns the distance of each person's income from his or her immediately richer neighbour. We derive two classes of inequality indices – absolute and relative. The envy concept is shown to be similar to justice concepts based on income relativities. This is the first time a complete characterisation has been provided for envy-related inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Cowell & Udo Ebert, 2008. "Inequality and envy," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality and Opportunity: Papers from the Second ECINEQ Society Meeting, pages 37-47, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:reinzz:s1049-2585(08)16002-1
    DOI: 10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16002-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16002-1/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16002-1/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16002-1/full/epub?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec&title=10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16002-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16002-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arnsperger, Christian, 1994. "Envy-Freeness and Distributive Justice," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 155-186, June.
    2. Bossert, Walter & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2006. "Reference groups and individual deprivation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 421-426, March.
    3. Armin Falk & Markus Knell, 2004. "Choosing the Joneses: Endogenous Goals and Reference Standards," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 417-435, October.
    4. Frank Cowell & Udo Ebert, 2004. "Complaints and inequality," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 23(1), pages 71-89, August.
    5. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1982. "Relative deprivation and economic welfare," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 99-113.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 2010. "Is There Room For Polarization?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 7-22, March.
    2. Marek Kośny, 2012. "Relative Income Changes and an Identification of Growth Pattern," Working Papers 268, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Edward Anderson & Lucio Esposito, 2014. "On the joint evaluation of absolute and relative deprivation," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(3), pages 411-428, September.
    4. Silber, Jacques & Verme, Paolo, 2012. "Relative deprivation, reference groups and the assessment of standard of living," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 31-45.
    5. Lucio Esposito, 2010. "Upper Boundedness For The Measurement Of Relative Deprivation," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(3), pages 632-639, September.
    6. Luis Imedio-Olmedo & Encarnación Parrado-Gallardo & Elena Bárcena-Martín, 2012. "Income Inequality Indices Interpreted as Measures of Relative Deprivation/Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 471-491, December.
    7. Paolo Verme, 2010. "Relative labour deprivation and urban migration in Turkey," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 391-408, December.
    8. Kristof Bosmans & Z. Emel Öztürk, 2018. "An axiomatic approach to the measurement of envy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(2), pages 247-264, February.
    9. Senik, Claudia, 2009. "Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 408-424, October.
    10. Iryna Hayduk & Maude Toussaint‐Comeau, 2022. "Determinants of noncognitive skills: Mediating effects of siblings' interaction and parenting quality," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 677-694, October.
    11. AndrewE. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2010. "Who Compares to Whom? The Anatomy of Income Comparisons in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 573-594, May.
    12. Andersson, Fredrik W., 2006. "Is Concern for Relative Consumption a Function of Relative Consumption?," Working Papers in Economics 220, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    13. Marco Grasso, 2004. "A Normative Framework of Justice in Climate Change," Working Papers 79, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2004.
    14. Stefano Bartolini & Francesco Sarracino, 2014. "It's not the economy, stupid! How social capital and GDP relate to happiness over time," Papers 1411.2138, arXiv.org.
    15. Alain Chateauneuf & Patrick Moyes, 2002. "Measuring inequality without the Pigou-Dalton condition," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00156475, HAL.
    16. Bossert, Walter & D’Ambrosio, Conchita, 2014. "Proximity-sensitive individual deprivation measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 125-128.
    17. Ralph I. Williams & Torsten M. Pieper & Franz W. Kellermanns & Joseph H. Astrachan, 2019. "Family business goal formation: a literature review and discussion of alternative algorithms," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 329-349, September.
    18. Oded Stark & Franz Rendl & Marcin Jakubek, 2012. "The merger of populations, the incidence of marriages, and aggregate unhappiness," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 331-344, April.
    19. Felipe Rivera, 2017. "Health opportunities in Colombia," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 87, pages 125-164, Julio - D.
    20. Bucciol, Alessandro & Burro, Giovanni, 2022. "Is there a happiness premium for working in the public sector? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:reinzz:s1049-2585(08)16002-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.