A Dissimilarity Index of Multidimensional Inequality of Opportunity (Revised and Updated)

Gaston Yalonetzky

No 39, OPHI Working Papers from Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

Abstract: A recent literature on inequality of opportunity offers quantitative tools for comparisons and measurement based on stochastic dominance criteria and traditional inequality indices. In this paper I suggest an additional way of assessing inequality of opportunity with two indices of dissimilarity across distributions. The indices are based on a traditional homogeneity test of multinomial distributions and are similar to the square coefficient of variation (Reardon and Firebaugh, 2002). Their properties are studied, as well as their usefulness and limitations in applications when both circumstances and advantages/outcomes are multidimensional. An empirical application measures changes in inequality of opportunity from an old to a young cohort in Peru. The importance of assessing the sensitivity of the results to group definitions and group proportions is highlighted.

Date: 2010-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ophi.org.uk/a-dissimilarity-index-of-multi ... revised-and-updated/ (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

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:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp0039

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OPHI Working Papers from Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford Queen Elizabeth House 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IT Support ().