Suchergebnisse

AbstractConsider two principles for social evaluation. The first, "laissez-faire", says that mean-preserving redistribution away from laissez-faire incomes should be regarded as a social worsening. This principle captures a key aspect of libertarian political philosophy. The second, weak Pareto, states that an increase in the disposable income of each individual should be regarded as a social improvement. We show that the combination of the two principles implies that total disposable income ought to be maximized. Strikingly, the relationship between disposable incomes and laissez-faire incomes must therefore be ignored, leaving little room for libertarian values.

We study the evolution of population‐weighted between‐country inequality in the period 1980–2009. Whereas previous studies almost exclusively focused on relative inequality measures, we consider relative, absolute and intermediate versions of the Lorenz dominance criterion and of the S‐Gini and generalized entropy classes of inequality measures. The analysis yields robust evidence for increasing absolute inequality. Moreover, this conclusion is preserved for intermediate views substantially in the direction of the relative view. In contrast, robust evidence for decreasing inequality—be it relative, absolute or intermediate—is virtually absent. These findings challenge the widely accepted claim of decreasing between‐country inequality.