This essay is a quick critique of one aspect of Derek Parfit’s criticism of Egalitarianism in his larger consideration of the claims of, and distinction between, Prioritarianism and Egalitarianism. It reviews issues relating to the ‘Levelling Down Objection’ and the ‘Divided World...

‘Distributional judgments’—judgments on the extent of inequality in the distribution of income and wealth—are routinely made by economists in exercises aimed at comparing inequalities in alternative situations. Yet the measurement of inequality is informed by certain nuances, which it...

Despite the formal rigour that attends social and economic measurement, the substantive meaning of particular measures could be compromised in the absence of a clear and coherent conceptualization of the phenomenon being measured. A case in point is afforded by the status of a focus-axiom in the...

Subgroup Decomposability is a very useful property in an inequality measure, and level-sensitivity, which requires a given level of inequality to acquire a greater significance the poorer a population is, is a distributionally appealing axiom for an inequality index to satisfy. In this paper,...

Despite the formal rigour that attends social and economic measurement, the substantive meaning of particular measures could be compromised in the absence of a clear and coherent conceptualization of the phenomenon being measured. A case in point is afforded by the status of a focus axiom in the...

Subgroup decomposability is a very useful property in an inequality measure, and level-sensitivity, which requires a given level of inequality to acquire a greater significance the poorer a population is, is a distributionally appealing axiom for an inequality index to satisfy. In this paper,...

The `Vast majority of incomes ratio (VMIR)' $R_0$ is the ratio of the average income $\mu_0$ of a poorest majority $p_0$ of the population to the overall average income $\mu$. Another measure of equality is $E_0\equiv(1-G)$ where $G$ is the Gini coefficient of inequality of the distribution....

Conventional approaches to the measurement of income-poverty require the ability to identify the poor by reference to a specified poverty line. On the face of it, it may appear to be unproblematic to specify such a poverty line. There are, however, analytical and conceptual difficulties entailed...