Measurement of inequality of opportunity based on counterfactuals

Dirk Van de gaer; Xavier Ramos

The theoretical literature on inequality of opportunity formulates basic properties that measures of inequality of opportunity should have. Standard methods for the measurement of inequality of opportunity require the construction of counterfactual outcome distributions through statistical methods. We show that, when standard parametric procedures are used to construct the counterfactuals, the specification used determines whether the resulting measures of inequality of opportunity satisfy the basic properties.

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Year of publication:	2015
Authors:	Van de Gaer, Dirk ; Ramos Morilla, Xavier
Publisher:	Bonn : IZA
Subject:	counterfactuals \| inequality measurement \| opportunities \| Einkommensverteilung \| Income distribution \| Konzentrationsmaß \| Concentration measurement \| Messung \| Measurement \| Bildungschancen \| Equality of opportunity in education \| Theorie \| Theory \| Soziale Gerechtigkeit \| Social justice \| Soziale Ungleichheit \| Social inequality