The roots of inequality: Estimating inequality of opportunity from regression trees

Paolo Brunori (), Paul Hufe and Daniel Gerszon Mahler ()
Additional contact information
Paolo Brunori: University of Florence, Italy
Daniel Gerszon Mahler: University of Copenhagen, Denmark and World Bank

No 455, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: We propose a set of new methods to estimate inequality of opportunity based on conditional inference regression trees. In particular, we illustrate how these methods represent a substantial improvement over existing empirical approaches to measure inequality of opportunity. First, they minimize the risk of arbitrary and ad-hoc model selection. Second, they provide a standardized way of trading of upward and downward biases in inequality of opportunity estimations. Finally, regression trees can be graphically represented; their structure is immediate to read and easy to understand. This will make the measurement of inequality of opportunity more easily comprehensible to a large audience. These advantages are illustrated by an empirical application based on the 2011 wave of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions.

Keywords: Equality of opportunity; machine learning; random forests. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C38 D31 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2018-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2018-455.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Roots of Inequality: Estimating Inequality of Opportunity from Regression Trees (2018)
Working Paper: The roots of inequality: estimating inequality of opportunity from regression trees (2018)
Working Paper: The Roots of Inequality: Estimating Inequality of Opportunity from Regression Trees (2017)
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:inq:inqwps:ecineq2018-455

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maria Ana Lugo ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).