Abstract
Our results show the intimate relationship between a large group of apparently different rankings of opportunity distributions. First, we provide a set of core basic axioms that are intuitively plausible under any concern for equality or efficiency aspects. Second, we introduce two very opposed views of the problem by incorporating different perspectives of the notion of advantage (better opportunity set) and we provide some axioms that might be defended under such extreme positions. For any of these two different perspectives, we characterize the families of rankings which satisfy the core axioms and the group of axioms corresponding to that view. These characterizations will prove insightful to better understand most of the criteria already introduced in the literature, which are part of the families we study.
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We are very grateful to John Weymark, Laurence Kranich, Jorge Nieto, Ricardo Arlegi, Juan Moreno-Ternero, Pedro Rey-Biel, the editor of the paper and an anonymous referee for their very helpful comments and suggestions. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, through the Juan de la Cierva program and project SEJ2006-11510. Miguel A. Ballester acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science through the Ramon y Cajal program and projects SEJ2005-01481, ECO08-04756, FEDER and the Barcelona Economics Program of CREA.
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Alcalde-Unzu, J., Ballester, M.A. On ranking opportunity distributions. Soc Choice Welf 34, 3–31 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-009-0386-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-009-0386-4