Why we all do care about inequality (but are loath to admit it)

Branko Milanovic ()

HEW from EconWPA

Abstract: This note is motivated by recent arguments made by Martin Feldstein in which the relevance of inequality is dismissed (if everybody's income goes up, who cares if inequality is up too?), and the argument is made that only poverty alleviation should matter. This note shows that we all do care about inequality, and to hold that we should be concerned with poverty solely and not with inequality is internally inconsistent.

Keywords: Inequality; poverty; redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D64 D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hpe
Date: 2004-04-13
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 10
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http://129.3.20.41/eps/hew/papers/0404/0404001.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Why we all do care about inequality (but are loath to admit it) (2004)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwphe:0404001

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