Partial compensation/responsibility

Erwin Ooghe ()

Theory and Decision, 2015, vol. 78, issue 2, 305-317

Abstract: Many theories of fairness distinguish between compensation factors (‘luck’) and responsibility factors (‘effort’). Whereas the distinction between both types of factors is a matter of definition in theory, empirical work usually requires a sharp cut. All determinants of the outcome of interest have to be classified as either a compensation factor or a responsibility factor. We argue that the determinants are often hard to classify. A pragmatic solution to the problem at hand is to introduce a more general soft cut: determinants can be partly compensation, partly responsibility. Still, in a first-best income tax framework, such a soft cut is possible only if the gross income function is additively separable. In case separability fits the data, a simple partial sharing rule emerges as a natural candidate for partial redistribution. This rule can be characterized on the basis of two simple properties, equal treatment of equals and partial solidarity. In case additive separability is rejected by the data, we propose two alternative solutions. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Equality of opportunity; Compensation; Responsibility; D6; D7; H2; I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11238-014-9423-6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:theord:v:78:y:2015:i:2:p:305-317

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/11238/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11238-014-9423-6

Access Statistics for this article

Theory and Decision is currently edited by Mohammed Abdellaoui

More articles in Theory and Decision from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().