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Reducing Inequalities Among Unequals

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  • Mathieu Faure
  • Nicolas Gravel

Abstract

This article establishes an equivalence between four incomplete rankings of distributions of income among agents who are vertically differentiated with respect to some nonincome characteristic (health, household size, etc.). The first ranking is the possibility of going from one distribution to the other by a finite sequence of income transfers from richer and more highly ranked agents to poorer and less highly ranked ones. The second ranking is the unanimity among utilitarian planners who assume that agents' marginal utility of income is decreasing with respect to both income and the source of vertical differentiation. The third ranking is the Bourguignon (Journal of Econometrics, 42 (1989), 67–80) Ordered Poverty Gap dominance criterion. The fourth ranking is a new dominance criterion based on cumulative lowest incomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathieu Faure & Nicolas Gravel, 2021. "Reducing Inequalities Among Unequals," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 357-404, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:62:y:2021:i:1:p:357-404
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12490
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    1. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2013. "Utilitarianism or welfarism: does it make a difference?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 529-551, February.
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    7. Gravel, Nicolas & Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Ethically robust comparisons of bidimensional distributions with an ordinal attribute," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1384-1426.
    8. Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Comparisons of heterogeneous distributions and dominance criteria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1351-1383.
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    14. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes & Benoît Tarroux, 2009. "Robust International Comparisons of Distributions of Disposable Income and Regional Public Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(303), pages 432-461, July.
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    4. Oliver Grothe & Fabian Kächele & Friedrich Schmid, 2022. "A multivariate extension of the Lorenz curve based on copulas and a related multivariate Gini coefficient," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(3), pages 727-748, September.

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