Income redistribution going awry: The reversal power of the concern for relative deprivation

Arbeitspapier

We demonstrate that a rank-preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality (when inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient). This happens when individuals' preferences depend negatively not only on work time (effort) but also on low relative income. It is rigorously shown that the set of preference profiles that gives rise to this perverse effect of a transfer on inequality is a non-empty open subset of all preference profiles. A robust example illustrates this result.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy ; No. 173

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Distribution: General ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Thema: a rank-preserving inequality-narrowing transfer ; the Gini coefficient ; low relative income ; relative deprivation ; exacerbated inequality

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Sorger, Gerhard ; Stark, Oded
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2012

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.22004/ag.econ.142407
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/84812
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:45 MEZ