Publication: Inequality of Opportunity: The New Motherhood and Apple Pie?
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Published
2015-06-29
ISSN
1099-1050
Date
2015-10-09
Author(s)
Kanbur, Ravi
Editor(s)
Abstract
The recent paper by García-Gómez et al. (2014) in this journal is part of a rapidly growing industry aiming to quantify – and hence give some policy teeth to – the concept of inequality of opportunity. The idea behind the concept is simple yet powerful. Not all inequality is bad. The bad bit of inequality (‘inequality of opportunity’) is the part that emerges because of factors over which we have no control (our ‘circumstances’). By contrast, inequality that emerges because of our different choices and efforts (holding constant our circumstances) is fine and to be encouraged. On the face of it, questioning the usefulness of inequality of opportunity seems about as wrongheaded as questioning the merits of family vacations, Thanksgiving, or dessert trolleys. What is not to like about it? We argue in this Editorial, as we have argued at greater length elsewhere (Kanbur and Wagstaff, 2015), that the idea is not quite as useful as it might at first glance appear and is in fact rather dangerous. But turned upside down, it might yet be useful. This article may be use for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions. http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.html
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Publication How Useful is Inequality of Opportunity as a Policy Construct?(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)The academic literature on equality of opportunity has burgeoned. The concepts and measures have begun to be used by policy institutions, including in specific sectors such as health and education. It is argued that one advantage of focusing on equality of opportunity is that policy makers are more responsive to that discourse than to equality of outcomes per se. This paper presents a critique of equality of opportunity in the policy context. Although the empirical analysis to which the literature has given rise is useful and is to be welcomed, current methods for quantifying and implementing the concept with a view to informing the policy discourse face a series of fundamental questions that remain unanswered. Without a full appreciation of these difficulties, the methods may prove to be misleading in the policy context.Publication Inequality of Opportunity(Wiley, 2015-06-24)We welcome the comments of Pedro Rosa Dias and Erik Schokkaert on our Editorial as a means of stimulating further debate on the usefulness of estimates of inequality of opportunity, especially for policy purposes. Our responses to their comments are in three categories. First, they broadly agree with many of our criticisms of the Paes de Barros et al. approach to measuring inequality of opportunity, but they say that these criticisms are already well appreciated in the literature. We beg to differ. Given our knowledge of work in policy settings, we believe that strong health warnings are in order. Second, we feel they do not sufficiently engage with a number of our points, including on talent and on luck. Third, while we agree with them that a strong focus on the income–health gradient leaves out many other considerations, we would nevertheless continue to argue for this focus on pragmatic grounds in the realm of policy. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions. http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.htmlPublication On Decomposing the Causes of Health Sector Inequalities with an Application to Malnutrition Inequalities in Vietnam(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-11)The authors propose a method for decomposing inequalities in the health sector into their causes, by coupling the concentration index with a regression framework. They also show how changes in inequality over time, and differences across countries, can be decomposed into the following: Changes due to changing inequalities in the determinants of the variable of interest. Changes in the means of the determinants. 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The author identifies four approaches that can shed light on the impacts of anti-inequality policies on health inequalities: cross-country comparative studies, country-based before-and-after studies with controls, benefit-incidence analysis, and decomposition analysis. The results of studies based on these four approaches do not give as many clear-cut answers as one might like on how best to swim against the tide of rising per capita incomes, and their apparent inequality-increasing effects. But they ought at least to help us build our stock of knowledge on the subject.
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