This paper explores the link between the measurement of intergenerational mobility and the notion of equality of opportunity. We show how recently proposed theories of equality of opportunity can be meaningfully adapted to the intergenerational context. This throws a new light on the...

We present a dictator game experiment where the recipients are local charities that serve the poor. Donors consist of approximately 1000 participants from a nationally representative respondent panel that is maintained by a private survey research firm, Knowledge Networks. We randomly manipulate...

In this paper, we examine the impact of information on individual contributions in a public-bad experiment. We compare two experimental treatments. In the partial information treatment, subjects are only informed about the total contributions by their group, whereas in the full information...

The neoclassical way to cope with firms providing services, or with clubs procuring services, is restricted by the lack of institutional features. An institutional approach is introduced that requires a cooperative governance to realize the potential value-production by firms, or to realize the...

Following a long-standing philosophical tradition, impartiality is a distinctive and determining feature of moral judgements, especially in matters of distributive justice. This broad ethical tradition was revived in welfare economics by Vickrey, and aboce all, Harsanyi, under the form of the...

The paper considers the problem of comparing income distributions for heterogeneous populations. Following Atkinson and Bourguignon (1987), we divide the population in different groups of needs and evaluate the social welfare with a utilitarian function. By considering the Generalized...

A general procedure inspired by the Shapley value is proposed for decompodsing any inequality index by factor components or by populations subgroups. To do so we define two types of inequality games. Although these games cannot be expressed in terms of unanimity games, an axiomatization of the...

This article is largely a survey of ideas and findings about economic inequality. It begins with an account of the socialist demand for economic equality and shows that this is incompatibloe with the rival social value of liberty. Utilitarismn which has dominated economic work on the problem, is...

A class of inequality measures that is a natural companion to the popular Lorenz curve is the class of measures that are linear in incomes. These measures, which include the Gini and S-Gini coefficients, can be interpreted as ethical means of relative deprivation feelings. Their change through...

The Serial Cost Sharing Rule has been conceived originally for problems where agents ask for different quantities of an homogeneous private good, the sum of which is produced by a single facility. In this context, it is endowed with a variety of desirable equity and coherency properties. This...