This article introduces an innovative approach to the validation of empirical methods aiming at estimating capabilities. Validating these empirical methods is difficult because capabilities are not directly observable. We propose a computational model to generate data from a simulated society,...

The analysis of inequality of opportunity has become an important issue in recent economic literature, especially in Latin America. This study proposes a link to the capability approach and analyzes the performance of the Mexican conditional cash transfer program Oportunidades in terms of...

The main aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of structural equation models in the estimation of capabilities in a multidimensional development space. We simulate an artificial society using agent-based modelling techniques. Our artificial world is generated to closely resemble a...

Measuring capabilities is a major challenge for the operationalization of the capability approach. Structural equation models (SEM) are being increasingly used as one possible methodology for estimating capabilities, but a certain skepticism remains about their appropriateness. In this paper, we...