Measuring justice and development: Providing opportunities or respecting preferences

Marc Fleurbaey

Outline

• Equal opportunities: approaches• Equal opportunities: problems• Another perspective: freedom• Respecting preferences• Issues in implementation

Equal opportunities: approaches

• Pragmatic approach (Roemer, World Bank): average outcome by origin – = disparity measurement, standardization

• Genuine opportunities approach (Sen, Cohen, Roemer): capability sets, access to advantage– Key element: genuine choice

• Resource approach (Rawls, Dworkin): generic resources, offered for use according to preferences– Criticized for fetishizing resources and preferences

Equal opportunities: approaches

• The reward problem: what should opportunities look like? Flat or steep?– Liberal approach: no intervention by the

government, no redistribution when inequalities are due to responsibility

– Utilitarian approach: zero inequality aversion, therefore give more to those with greater marginal utility (if they are responsible for it)

Equal opportunities: problems

• Anti-solidarity attitude, moralizing, self-righteous

• What is genuine choice? Individuals are influenced in so many ways

• Does EOp therefore reduce to equality of outcome?

• Yes – but what outcome?

Another perspective: freedom

• The bright side of opportunities: freedom• Should not be fetishized but is important and

attractive (across all cultures)• Does not justify focus on opportunities rather

than achievement, but is a component of well-being

• Concretely? Take account of people’s goals in life, their values, preferences (including on how much choice they want)

Respecting preferences

• Is it possible? Arrow’s theorem suggests not• Interpersonal comparisons are the key

ingredient of social evaluation• This is not an empirical issue, but a fairness

issue: who deserves greater priority?

Illustration: equivalent income

• Life = (income , quality of life)• Quality of life : denoted QoL• Principle 1: respect preferences on Life• Principle 2 (fairness): When QoL = QoL*, the

richer are better off• Theorem: Under these principles, people must

be compared in terms of equivalent incomes:(income , QoL) as good as (Eq.Inc. , QoL*)

Illustration: equivalent income

• Measure of social welfare:

Average Equivalent Income x( 1 – Inequality index on

Eq.Inc.)

• The inequality index embodies priority for the worst-off

What are people’s preferences ?

• Sources of information:– Revealed preferences– Stated preferences– Subjective well-being regressed on objects of

preferences• What are “authentic” preferences ?– Social conventions, social pressure– Behavioral phenomena (esp. for intertemporal

and risk issues)

Making it relevant

• How to extend the measure to different levels of development?– OECD: unemployment and life expectancy– Other studies: also leisure, family size– What about basic health care, basic public goods, safe water…

• Incorporate important social issues that are seldom measured:– Status– Autonomy at work (workers)– And at home (gender)– Freedom of movement and ideas– Quality of social networks

Conclusion

• Opportunities: better than nothing but potentially misleading

• Identifying and respecting preferences may be more promising: why do people rebel?

• Democratizing measures of social progress: not by cheap participatory forums, but by seeking to cater to people’s values and goals