Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization
Economic development should be conceived of as the degree to which an economy has implemented an efficient and just distribution of economic resources. The ubiquitous measure of GDP per capita reflects a utilitarian conception of justice, where individual utility is defined as personal income, an...
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Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23538 |
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okr-10986-235382021-04-23T14:04:15Z Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization Roemer, John E. agriculture development policy discounted value disposable income Economic Development economic resources economic theory GDP GDP per capita income inefficiency m2 Pareto efficiency redistributive taxation tax revenues taxation total output utility function wages wealth Economic development should be conceived of as the degree to which an economy has implemented an efficient and just distribution of economic resources. The ubiquitous measure of GDP per capita reflects a utilitarian conception of justice, where individual utility is defined as personal income, and social welfare is the average of utilities in a population. A more attractive conception of justice is opportunity-equalization. Here, a two-dimensional measure of economic development is proposed, based upon viewing individuals’ incomes as a consequence of circumstances, effort, and policy. The first dimension is the average income level of those in the society with the most disadvantaged circumstances, and the second dimension is the degree to which total income inequality is due to differential effort, as opposed to differential circumstances. This pair of numbers is computed for a set of 22 European countries. No country dominates all others on both dimensions. The two-dimensional measure induces a partial ordering of countries with respect to development. 2015-12-29T20:35:16Z 2015-12-29T20:35:16Z 2014-05-27 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23538 en_US CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Europe |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
en_US |
| topic |
agriculture development policy discounted value disposable income Economic Development economic resources economic theory GDP GDP per capita income inefficiency m2 Pareto efficiency redistributive taxation tax revenues taxation total output utility function wages wealth |
| spellingShingle |
agriculture development policy discounted value disposable income Economic Development economic resources economic theory GDP GDP per capita income inefficiency m2 Pareto efficiency redistributive taxation tax revenues taxation total output utility function wages wealth Roemer, John E. Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization |
| geographic_facet |
Europe |
| description |
Economic development should be conceived of as the degree to which an economy has
implemented an efficient and just distribution of economic resources. The ubiquitous
measure of GDP per capita reflects a utilitarian conception of justice, where individual
utility is defined as personal income, and social welfare is the average of utilities in a
population. A more attractive conception of justice is opportunity-equalization. Here, a
two-dimensional measure of economic development is proposed, based upon viewing
individuals’ incomes as a consequence of circumstances, effort, and policy. The first dimension
is the average income level of those in the society with the most disadvantaged
circumstances, and the second dimension is the degree to which total income inequality
is due to differential effort, as opposed to differential circumstances. This pair of
numbers is computed for a set of 22 European countries. No country dominates all
others on both dimensions. The two-dimensional measure induces a partial ordering of
countries with respect to development. |
| format |
Journal Article |
| author |
Roemer, John E. |
| author_facet |
Roemer, John E. |
| author_sort |
Roemer, John E. |
| title |
Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization |
| title_short |
Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization |
| title_full |
Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization |
| title_fullStr |
Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization |
| title_sort |
economic development as opportunity equalization |
| publisher |
Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23538 |
| _version_ |
1764454127374434304 |