The origins of the capabilities approach within welfare economics are to be found in a series of influential papers and monographs, written by Amartya Sen in the early eighties of the previous century (Sen, 1980, 1985a; Sen et al., 1987). He developed and discussed the approach further in some widely...

We model inter-individual differences in preferences for redistribution as a function of (a) self-interest; (b) stable ideological traits; (c) subjective perceptions of the relative importance of the main determinants of income differences (luck, effort, talent). Individuals base the latter on...