Using self reported measures of life satisfaction and risk attitudes, we empirically test whether there is a relationship between individuals inequality and risk aversion. The empirical analysis uses the German SOEP household panel for the years 1997 to 2007 to conclude that the negative effect...

Starting from the axiomatisation of polarisation contained in Esteban and Ray (1994) and Chakravarty and Majumdar (2001) we investigate whether people's perceptions of income polarisation is consistent with the key axioms. This is carried out using a questionnaire-experimental approach that...

We put together the different conceptual issues involved in measuring inequality of opportunity, discuss how these concepts have been translated into computable measures, and point out the problems and choices researchers face when implementing these measures. Our analysis identifies and...

Some analysts use sequential dominance criteria, and others use equivalence scales in combination with non-sequential dominance tests, to make welfare comparisons of joint distributions of income and needs. In this paper we present a new sequential procedure which copes with situations in which...

In this paper we propose different criteria to rank income distributions according to equality of opportunity. Different from existing ones, our criteria explicitly recognize the interplay between circumstances and effort. We characterize them axiomatically and we compare them with existing...