Equality of Opportunity

John Roemer and Alain Trannoy

No 1921, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: This forthcoming chapter in the Handbook of Income Distribution (eds., A. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon) summarizes the literature on equality of opportunity. We begin by reviewing the philosophical debate concerning equality since Rawls (sections 1 and 2), present economic algorithms for computing policies which equalize opportunities, or, more generally, ways of ordering social policies with respect to their efficacy in opportunity equalization (sections 3, 4 and 5), apply the approach to the conceptualization of economic development (section 6), discuss dynamic issues (section 7), give a preamble to a discussion of empirical work (section 8), provide evidence of population views from surveys and experiments concerning conceptions of equality (section 9), and a discuss measurement issues, summarizing the empirical literature on inequality of opportunity to date (section 10). We conclude with mention of some critiques of the equal-opportunity approach, and some predictions (section 11).

Keywords: Equality of opportunity; Responsibility; Circumstances; Effort; Veil of ignorance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 D6 D63 H1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 111 pages
Date: 2013-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (85)

Published in Journal of Economic Literature (December 2016), 54(4): 1288-1332

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Working Paper: Equality of Opportunity (2014)
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