I propose a personal reading of some theories of social justice at a moment when the issue of equality or equity appears to be back on the ‘development agenda’. Nowadays the term equity tends to be most often associated with the equality of opportunity principle. After having briefly...

Despite success in reducing poverty over the last twenty years, inequality in Chile has remained virtually unchanged, making Chile one of the least equal countries in the world. High levels of inequality have been shown to hamper further reductions in poverty as well as economic growth and local...

Despite rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, inequality in Chile has remained high and remarkably constant over the last 20 years,prompting academic and public interest in the subject. Due to data limitations, however, research on inequality in Chile has concentrated on the national and...

In this paper, we apply a multidimensional decomposition of the Gini index to the active and retired populations in France. The multi-decomposition of an inequality measure allows us to put into perspective the role of social spending and taxation in reducing inequalities simultaneously among...

The cross-country correlation between social trust and income equality is well documented, but few studies examine the direction of causality. We show theoretically that by facilitating cooperation, trust may increase efficiency and lead to more equal outcomes, while the feedback from inequality...

The aim of this article is to analyse in depth the interactions of growth and poverty in Syria, which undertook reforms to reduce the government's involvement in the economy. During the 1996–2004 period, growth was pro-poor in ‘weak absolute’ terms but not in either relative or ‘strong...

This paper studies the impact of changes in educational opportunities on various definitions of labour market inequalities in Brazil over two decades (1976-96). Using four editions of the nationally representative PNAD survey, we analyze the evolution of overall inequalities and inequalities of...

This article studies the formation of preferences regarding redistribution. Its aim is to demonstrate how preferences for redistribution are influenced by individual beliefs on the origins of social inequality and public values. The first section shows, through a microeconomic model, how...

This article studies the formation of preferences regarding redistribution. Its aim is to demonstrate how preferences for redistribution are influenced by individual beliefs on the origins of social inequality and public values. The first section shows, through a microeconomic model, how...

This paper proposes a measure of the contribution of unequal opportunities to earnings inequality. Drawing on the distinction between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ variables in John Roemer’s work on equality of opportunity, we associate inequality of opportunities with five observed...