Individual and Social Deprivation: A Fairness Approach
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The paper is available at this link: sites.google.com/site/paologpiacquadio/research

Abstract:
The eradication of poverty is a widely-shared policy goal. Yet, there is no consensus on how to measure poverty. Moreover, currently adopted indices face serious drawbacks. First, they may identify an increase in poverty even if a policy makes all poor better-off. Second, most indices are not robust to measurement errors: a small change of individuals’ assignments might determine large jumps in the level of poverty. Third, the ethical viewpoints expressed by these indices are often unclear. In this paper, I address these drawbacks. I propose assessing poverty through a family of indices of social and individual (multidimensional) deprivation. The axiomatic characterization builds on transparent and intuitive fairness principles. Social deprivation ought to be measured by the sum of specific indices of individual deprivation which: (i) respect the preferences of deprived individuals; (ii) compare individuals based on the set of attainments they are deprived of; and (iii) are continuous and convex. I illustrate the results using the Norwegian register data. Finally, I extend the results to differences in needs and categorical dimensions of deprivation.
Date: 23 February 2018, 14:15 (Friday, 6th week, Hilary 2018)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: IT Room
Speaker: Paolo G. Piacquadio (University of Oslo)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Nuffield Economic Theory Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Erin Saunders, Anne Pouliquen