We provide a simple proof of Foster's (1983) characterization of the Theil inequality index.

We axiomatically characterize the Theil ordering of income inequality. In addition to the uncontroversial axioms of anonymity, homogeneity, replication invariance, strong directedness, and a standard continuity property, we appeal to both an independence and a decomposability axioms. These two...

Income inequality is one of the most important issues in the economic literature. Since the 1980s, in line with neoliberal model, income inequality has increased both between and within countries. However, it is not easy to have high quality data for long period of time particulary for the...

In this paper, we consider production economies with possibly unequal production skills and with possibility of technological innovations, in which resource allocations are determined via bargaining among individuals. We define the Nash bargaining solution as the (bargaining) allocation rule...

This paper presents and characterizes a two-parameter class of inequality measures that contains the generalized entropy measures, the variance of logarithms, the path independent measures of Foster and Shneyerov (1999) and several new classes of measures. The key axiom is a generalized form of...

We consider a cost sharing problem among agents on a line. The problem is closely related to the classic airport game, but in our model agents are characterized by their location, rather than their needed runway length. We characterize a family of cost allocation rules in which agents pay a...

This paper approaches the problem of inequalities in China. It is specifically focused on analyzing the effects of intra-provincial disparities on provincial economic development. Rising inequalities have been widely discussed in the literature on the examples of fast growing developing...

Recently there has been a growing interest in the empirical association between income inequality and social mobility. Little is known on the normative nexus between both notions, however. In this paper, we axiomatically characterize a family of multiperiod social evaluation functions that...

We propose an empirical 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,...

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...