In this paper, we introduce and apply a general framework for evaluating long-term income distributions according to the Equality of Opportunity principle. Our framework allows for both an exante and an ex-post approach to EOp. Our ex-post approach relies on a permanent income measure defined as...

Building on earlier work by political philosophers, economists have recently sought to define a concept of equity that accommodates the fairness of reward to individual responsibility and effort, while allowing for the existence of some inequalities which are unfair and should be compensated....

We propose a structural model to estimate inequality of opportunity (IOp) among workers and to distinguish two different sources of inequality: (i) inequality in the labour attachment and (ii) inequality in the remuneration of each working hour. Considering working hours as a measure of effort,...

Despite a recent surge in the number of studies attempting to measure inequality of opportunity in various countries, methodological differences have so far prevented meaningful international comparisons. This paper presents a comparison of ex-ante measures of inequality of economic opportunity...

This paper addresses the problem of the normative evaluation of income tax systems and income tax reforms. While most of the existing criteria, framed in the utilitarian tradition, are uniquely based on information about individual incomes, this paper, building upon the opportunity egalitarian...

In this paper we argue that a better understanding of the relationship between inequality and growth can be obtained by shifting the analysis from the space of final achievements to the space of opportunities. To this end, we introduce the Opportunity Growth Incidence Curve (OGIC) that can be...

We axiomatically characterize two classes of poverty measures which are sensitive to inequality of opportunity - one a strict subset of the other. The proposed indices are sensitive not only to income shortfalls from the poverty line, but also to differences in opportunities faced by people with...

We address the problem of ranking distributions of opportunity sets in terms of poverty. In order to accomplish this task, we identify a suitable notion of ‘multidimensional poverty line’ and we characterize axiomatically several poverty rankings of opportunity profiles. Among them, the...

We study the difference between the ex post and the ex ante perspectives in equality of opportunity (EOp), and the possibility of a clash between them. We argue that ex ante EOp is a potential trap because someone motivated by ex post EOp may be led to believe that ex ante EOp is another natural...

In 2001 the Italian tertiary education system embarked in a broad process of reform. The main novelty brought by the reform was a reduction of the length of study to get a first level degree together with the introduction of a 2-years, second level, master degree. This paper aims at studying the...