Economic Development as Opportunity Equalization

Roemer, John E.

Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank

关键词: agriculture;    development policy;    discounted value;    disposable income;    Economic Development;   

DOI  :  10.1093/wber/lht023

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Economic development should be conceived of as the degree to which an economy hasimplemented an efficient and just distribution of economic resources. The ubiquitousmeasure of GDP per capita reflects a utilitarian conception of justice, where individualutility is defined as personal income, and social welfare is the average of utilities in apopulation. A more attractive conception of justice is opportunity-equalization. Here, atwo-dimensional measure of economic development is proposed, based upon viewingindividuals’ incomes as a consequence of circumstances, effort, and policy. The first dimensionis the average income level of those in the society with the most disadvantagedcircumstances, and the second dimension is the degree to which total income inequalityis due to differential effort, as opposed to differential circumstances. This pair ofnumbers is computed for a set of 22 European countries. No country dominates allothers on both dimensions. The two-dimensional measure induces a partial ordering ofcountries with respect to development.