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Intertemporal inequality of opportunity

Author

Listed:
  • Domenico Moramarco

    (Université Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES))

  • Flaviana Palmisano

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Vito Peragine

    (University of Bari "Aldo Moro")

Abstract

We propose an axiomatic approach to characterize normative criteria for the evaluation of lifetime income distributions according to the opportunity egalitarian perspective (Roemer, 1998). In a setting in which both individual incomes and predetermined circumstances are variable over time, we adopt a norm-based approach to the measurement of inequality, and propose two different benchmark distributions, referring respectively to the ex ante and the ex post versions of equality of opportunity. We first aggregate over time, thereby characterizing measures of interetemporal individual inequality of opportunity, and then aggregate the individual measures into a societal measure. Our individual measure results to be a weighted average of individuals’ opportunity gap experienced in each period. Our aggregate measure is an average of a concave transformation of the individual intertemporal opportunity gap and can be interpreted as an intertemporal inequality of opportunity index. We apply our framework to evaluate the Korean distribution of income from an intertemporal and opportunity egalitarian perspective.

Suggested Citation

  • Domenico Moramarco & Flaviana Palmisano & Vito Peragine, 2020. "Intertemporal inequality of opportunity," SERIES 07-2020, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", revised Jul 2020.
  • Handle: RePEc:bai:series:series_wp_07-2020
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    lifetime income inequality; intertemporal distributions; equality of opportunity; opportunity gap; Korea;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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