Ethically Robust Comparisons of Distributions of Two Individual Attributes

Nicolas Gravel () and Patrick Moyes ()

No 605, IDEP Working Papers from Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France

Abstract: This paper examines the normative properties of an empirically implementable dominance criterion for comparing alternative distributions of two attributes, one of which being cardinally measurable, between an arbitrary number of individuals. The criterion, which generalizes the one proposed by Bourguignon (1989), states that distribution A dominates distribution B when poverty in the cardinally measurable attribute, as measured by the poverty gap, is no greater in A than in B for all poverty lines that are weakly decreasing with respect to the other attribute. The criterion is shown to be equivalent to the ranking of distributions of two attributes that would be aggreed upon by all utility-inequality averse welfarist social planners who assume that households convert attributes into well-being by the same increasing utility function satisfying the property that the marginal utility of the cardinally measurable attribute is decreasing with respect to the two attributes. This paper also identifies the elementary equalizing transformations that correspond to this criterion.

Keywords: normative analysis; two-dimensional dominance; elementary transformations. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 D63 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2006-08, Revised 2006-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Ethically robust comparisons of distributions of two individual attributes (2010)
Working Paper: Ethically robust comprisons of distributions of two individual attributes (2007)
Working Paper: Ethically robust comprisons of distributions of two individual attributes (2007)
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