Equality Of Opportunity The Economics Of Responsibility

Foreword by Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2007)This book is a collection of articles written by the two authors on the topic of equality of opportunity. All articles build on the idea that a just society should equalize the resources that determine the opportunities agents face in order to follow their goals. Resources are either external, like financial resources, or internal, like preferences or skills. The authors propose to define “equality of opportunity” as the combination of ethical principles of compensation and responsibility. The principle of compensation requires external resources to be used to compensate low-skilled agents (considering that inequalities due to skill differences are unjust). The principle of responsibility requires external resources to be allocated without regards to inequalities due to differences in preferences (considering that these inequalities are not unjust). The articles present different ways of combining the two principles in different economic contexts.The book offers many possible aspects of the analysis of equality of opportunity, ranging from axiomatic discussions in abstract compensation models, to the design of redistribution policies in concrete labor income taxation models.

This book is a collection of articles written by the two authors on the topic of equality of opportunity. All articles build on the idea that a just society should equalize the resources that determine the opportunities agents face in order to follow their goals. Resources are either external, like financial resources, or internal, like preferences or skills. The authors propose to define "equality of opportunity" as the combination of ethical principles of compensation and responsibility. The principle of compensation requires external resources to be used to compensate low-skilled agents (considering that inequalities due to skill differences are unjust). The principle of responsibility requires external resources to be allocated without regards to inequalities due to differences in preferences (considering that these inequalities are not unjust). The articles present different ways of combining the two principles in different economic contexts. The book offers many possible aspects of the analysis of equality of opportunity, ranging from axiomatic discussions in abstract compensation models, to the design of redistribution policies in concrete labor income taxation models.--

What are the methodologies for assessing and improving governmental policy in light of well-being? The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of this topic. The contributors draw from welfare economics, moral philosophy, and psychology and are leading scholars in these fields. The Handbook includes thirty chapters divided into four Parts. Part I covers the full range of methodologies for evaluating governmental policy and assessing societal condition-including both the leading approaches in current use by policymakers and academics (such as GDP, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, inequality and poverty metrics, and the concept of the "social welfare function"), and emerging techniques. Part II focuses on the nature of well-being. What, most fundamentally, determines whether an individual life is better or worse for the person living it? Her happiness? Her preference-satisfaction? Her attainment of various "objective goods"? Part III addresses the measurement of well-being and the thorny topic of interpersonal comparisons. How can we construct a meaningful scale of individual welfare, which allows for comparisons of well-being levels and differences, both within one individual's life, and across lives? Finally, Part IV reviews the major challenges to designing governmental policy around individual well-being.

Eight papers, both theoretical and applied, on the concept of equality of opportunity which says that a society should guarantee its members equal access to advantage regardless of their circumstances, while holding them responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of effort.

John Roemer points out that there are two views of equality of opportunity that are widely held today. The first, which he calls the nondiscrimination principle, states that in the competition for positions in society, individuals should be judged only on attributes relevant to the performance of the duties of the position in question. Attributes such as race or sex should not be taken into account. The second states that society should do what it can to level the playing field among persons who compete for positions, especially during their formative years, so that all those who have the relevant potential attributes can be considered. Common to both positions is that at some point the principle of equal opportunity holds individuals accountable for achievements of particular objectives, whether they be education, employment, health, or income. Roemer argues that there is consequently a "before" and an "after" in the notion of equality of opportunity: before the competition starts, opportunities must be equalized, by social intervention if need be; but after it begins, individuals are on their own. The different views of equal opportunity should be judged according to where they place the starting gate which separates "before" from "after." Roemer works out in a precise way how to determine the location of the starting gate in the different views.

The negligence of humanity in economics has already led to huge inequalities in different spheres. This book does focus on social inequality as the considered root-cause for economic inequality while noticing the interrelations between political, economic, and social inequalities. Therefore, the introduced normative concept aims at the establishment of a long-term perspective in the economic sphere, the fairly-distributed allocation of resources as a result of political interference, and the ensuring of equality of opportunity in the social sphere by realization of the “Theory of liberal Fairness”. The intention is to enable citizens as well as societies coping with future challenges while putting the human being back in the center. To allow such a state, the “Theory of reasonable Progress” is proposed as an economic system that is based on Ordoliberalism with some Keynesian elements. The inquiry begins with some theoretical economic concepts and examines the origins as well as different levels of inequality in three countries with their special adoption of a market economy while investigating in each of them the owners of social responsibility. It is followed by a selection of some applicable as well as practicable theories of justice and the compilation of diverse measures in form of a comprehensive tool kit for the establishment of fairness as a response to the growing inequalities in our society. Hereby, the ownership of social responsibility is shared between the public and the private sector. These outcomes will be utilized to develop a framework for the promotion of humanity in economics while also maintaining a high degree of fairness. Consequently, these concepts will be applied to the European Union as an example for their proposed functioning. From the text: - Economic theories; - Inequality levels; - Fairness; - Human-centred business; - European integration

Develops a theory of fairness incorporating a concern for personal responsibility, opportunities and freedom, and makes accessible the recent developments in economics and philosophy that define social justice in terms of equal opportunities.

A new analysis of John Rawls's theory of distributive justice, focusing on the ways his ideas have both influenced and been misinterpreted by the current egalitarian literature.