Need, equality and social justice

Anthony Culyer and Adam Wagstaff

No 090chedp, Working Papers from Centre for Health Economics, University of York

Abstract: It is frequently claimed that social justice requires that some goods – medical care is a frequently cited example – be distributed according to “need”. The most common justification for adoption of this principle is the cause of inequality: the principles of “distribution according to need” and “equality” are seen as interrelated. In this paper we propose a definition of need and explore the distributional implications of allocating resources according to need. We dispute the claim that the principles of equality and “distribution according to need” are in any way linked and argue that the latter is unlikely in general to result in the attainment of equality and may actually increase inequality.

Keywords: equality; binary; need (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 1991-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chy:respap:90chedp

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