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Equality of Opportunity: A progress report

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  • Alain Trannoy

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to offer a non-technical selective survey for a general audience about how economists have progressively handled the concept of equality of opportunity. The key idea is that equality of opportunity not only deals with ex-ante inequalities, something that the name already suggests, but also with ex-post inequalities which makes the analysis quite different from that of the capability approach. The article is structured in three parts. First, we review the main theoretical issues about inequality of opportunity. We then follow by looking at the measurement issues and by presenting some empirical results. We finally provide an overview about the challenges faced by policies aiming at enhancing equality of opportunity.

Suggested Citation

  • Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Equality of Opportunity: A progress report," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 126(5), pages 621-651.
    • Handle: RePEc:cai:repdal:redp_265_0621
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ex-ante inequalities; ex-post inequalities; inequality of opportunity; public policies; compensation; natural reward;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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