Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie?
The recent paper by García-Gómez et al. (2014) in this journal is part of a rapidly growing industry aiming to quantify – and hence give some policy teeth to – the concept of inequality of opportunity. The idea behind the concept is simple yet powerful. Not all inequality is bad. The bad bit of ineq...
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22765 |
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okr-10986-227652021-04-23T14:04:11Z Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? Wagstaff, Adam Kanbur, Ravi inequality of opportunity health The recent paper by García-Gómez et al. (2014) in this journal is part of a rapidly growing industry aiming to quantify – and hence give some policy teeth to – the concept of inequality of opportunity. The idea behind the concept is simple yet powerful. Not all inequality is bad. The bad bit of inequality (‘inequality of opportunity’) is the part that emerges because of factors over which we have no control (our ‘circumstances’). By contrast, inequality that emerges because of our different choices and efforts (holding constant our circumstances) is fine and to be encouraged. On the face of it, questioning the usefulness of inequality of opportunity seems about as wrongheaded as questioning the merits of family vacations, Thanksgiving, or dessert trolleys. What is not to like about it? We argue in this Editorial, as we have argued at greater length elsewhere (Kanbur and Wagstaff, 2015), that the idea is not quite as useful as it might at first glance appear and is in fact rather dangerous. But turned upside down, it might yet be useful. This article may be use for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions. http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.html 2015-10-09T19:28:32Z 2015-10-09T19:28:32Z 2015-06-29 Journal Article Health Economics 1099-1050 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22765 en_US For non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions. http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.html World Bank Wiley Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article |
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Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
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Digital Repositories |
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World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
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World Bank |
| language |
en_US |
| topic |
inequality of opportunity health |
| spellingShingle |
inequality of opportunity health Wagstaff, Adam Kanbur, Ravi Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? |
| description |
The recent paper by García-Gómez et al. (2014) in this journal is part of a rapidly growing industry aiming to quantify – and hence give some policy teeth to – the concept of inequality of opportunity. The idea behind the concept is simple yet powerful. Not all inequality is bad. The bad bit of inequality (‘inequality of opportunity’) is the part that emerges because of factors over which we have no control (our ‘circumstances’). By contrast, inequality that emerges because of our different choices and efforts (holding constant our circumstances) is fine and to be encouraged.
On the face of it, questioning the usefulness of inequality of opportunity seems about as wrongheaded as questioning the merits of family vacations, Thanksgiving, or dessert trolleys. What is not to like about it? We argue in this Editorial, as we have argued at greater length elsewhere (Kanbur and Wagstaff, 2015), that the idea is not quite as useful as it might at first glance appear and is in fact rather dangerous. But turned upside down, it might yet be useful.
This article may be use for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions. http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.html |
| format |
Journal Article |
| author |
Wagstaff, Adam Kanbur, Ravi |
| author_facet |
Wagstaff, Adam Kanbur, Ravi |
| author_sort |
Wagstaff, Adam |
| title |
Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? |
| title_short |
Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? |
| title_full |
Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? |
| title_fullStr |
Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Inequality of Opportunity : The New Motherhood and Apple Pie? |
| title_sort |
inequality of opportunity : the new motherhood and apple pie? |
| publisher |
Wiley |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22765 |
| _version_ |
1764452163672604672 |