Aversion to Inequality in Italy and its Determinants

31 Pages Posted: 16 May 2003

See all articles by Vincenzo Atella

Vincenzo Atella

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Centre for International Studies on Economic Growth (CEIS); Department of Economics and Finance; University of Rome Tor Vergata - Faculty of Economics

Jay S. Coggins

University of Minnesota - College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences - Department of Applied Economics

Federico Perali

University of Verona - Department of Economics

Date Written: December 2002

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to estimate the preferences of the Italian society towards equity in order to verify whether preferences i) have changed across the years, and ii) can be related to specific sociodemographic characteristics. Introducing equity concerns in the implementation of economic policies is a fundamental problem faced by both economists and policy makers. This paper uses a social welfare function a la Jorgenson and Slesnick to estimate society's aversion towards inequality by implementing a voting scheme for compiling individuals' equity preferences into a social choice by majority rule. The results show that preferences are highly polarized toward a low and a high concern for equity aversion and that this concern is significantly related with several sociodemographic characteristics. Among them, income plays an important role with richer people that tend to favor less equity. Results also show that preferences towards equity have changed across the years.

JEL Classification: D1, D31, D6

Suggested Citation

Atella, Vincenzo and Coggins, Jay S. and Perali, Federico, Aversion to Inequality in Italy and its Determinants (December 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=383003 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.383003

Vincenzo Atella (Contact Author)

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Centre for International Studies on Economic Growth (CEIS) ( email )

Via Columbia, 2
Rome, I-00133
Italy
+39 06 72595648 (Phone)

Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

Via Columbia 2
Roma, 00133
Italy

University of Rome Tor Vergata - Faculty of Economics ( email )

Via Columbia n.2
I-00133 Rome, 00133
Italy
+39 06 72595635 (Phone)
+30 06 2020 500 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.economia.uniroma2.it/sefemeq/professori/atella/

Jay S. Coggins

University of Minnesota - College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences - Department of Applied Economics ( email )

1994 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108
United States
612-625-6232 (Phone)
612-625-2729 (Fax)

Federico Perali

University of Verona - Department of Economics ( email )

via dell'Artigliere, 19
I-37129 Verona
Italy

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
111
Abstract Views
1,113
Rank
207,663
PlumX Metrics