IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1583.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization

Author

Abstract

The justification of using GNP per capita as a measure of economic development is utilitarian ethics plus an assumption that no needs are more urgent than others. Here, we advocate a measure of economic development based on the degree to which the society in question has equalized opportunities for the acquisition of income. In highly developed economies, inequality of opportunity accounts for less than 10% of total inequality, while in developing economies, it accounts for over 30%.

Suggested Citation

  • John E. Roemer, 2006. "Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1583, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1583
    Note: CFP 1397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d15/d1583.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Equality of opportunity; Economic development;

    JEL classification:

    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1583. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.