Economic Development As Opportunity Equalization

Roemer, John E.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSTINENCE;    AGRICULTURE;    AVERAGE INCOME;    AVERAGE INCOME LEVEL;    CAPACITY BUILDING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6530
RP-ID  :  WPS6530

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 conceivedof as the degree to which an economy has implemented anefficient and just distribution of economic resources. Theubiquitous measure of GDP per capita reflects a utilitarianconception of justice, where individual utility is definedas personal income, and social welfare is the average ofutilities in a population. A more attractive conception ofjustice is opportunity-equalization. Here, a two-dimensionalmeasure of economic development is proposed, based uponviewing individualsincomes as a consequence ofcircumstances, effort, and policy. The first dimension isthe average income level of those in the society with themost disadvantaged circumstances, and the second dimensionis the degree to which total income inequality is due todifferential effort, as opposed to differentialcircumstances. This pair of numbers is computed for a set of22 European countries. No country dominates all others onboth dimensions. The two-dimensional measure induces apartial ordering of countries with respect to development.