期刊名称：Discussion Papers / Ibero America Institute for Economic Research (IAI)
出版年度：2005
卷号：2005
出版社：Ibero America Institute for Economic Research
摘要：This paper proposes a method to decompose earnings inequality
into a component due to unequal opportunities and a residual term. Drawing on
the distinction between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ variables in John Roemer’s
work on equality of opportunity, we associate inequality of opportunities with
the inequality attributable to circumstances which lie beyond the control of the
individual – such as her family background, her race and the region where she
was born. We interpret the decomposition as establishing a lower bound on the
contribution of opportunities to earnings inequality. We further decompose the
effect of opportunities into a direct effect on earnings and an indirect
component which works through the “effort” variables. The decomposition is
applied to the distributions of male and female earnings in Brazil, in 1996.
While the residual term is large, observed circumstances nevertheless account
for around a quarter of the value of the Theil index. Parental education is by
far the most important circumstance affecting earnings, dwarfing the effects of
race and place of birth.
关键词：Inequality of opportunity, earnings inequality, intergenerational mobility
