This paper proposes a method to decompose earnings inequality into a component due to unequal opportunities and a residual term. Drawing on the distinction between 'circumstance' and 'effort' variables in John Roemer's work on equality of opportunity, we associate inequality of opportunities...

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....

"Shared prosperity" has become a common phrase in the development policy discourse. This short paper provides its most widely used operational definition - the growth rate in the average income of the poorest 40 percent of a country's population - and describes its origins. The paper discusses...