Regional Disparities and Inequality of Opportunity: The Case of Italy

31 Pages Posted: 8 Dec 2005

See all articles by Daniele Checchi

Daniele Checchi

Università degli Studi di Milano - Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Aziendale (DEPA); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; IRVAPP

Vito Peragine

Università di Bari

Date Written: December 2005

Abstract

In this paper we provide a new methodology to measure opportunity inequality and to decompose overall inequality in an "ethically offensive" and an "ethically acceptable" part. Moreover, we provide some empirical applications of these new evaluation tools: in the first exercise, we compare the income distributions of South and North of Italy on the basis of a measure of opportunity inequality. Then, we repeat the exercise using the cognitive abilities in a sample of 15-year old students. In both circumstances we find that the less developed regions in the South are characterized by greater incidence of inequality of opportunity.

Keywords: equality of opportunity, justice, education

JEL Classification: D63

Suggested Citation

Checchi, Daniele and Peragine, Vitorocco, Regional Disparities and Inequality of Opportunity: The Case of Italy (December 2005). IZA Discussion Paper No. 1874, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=869006 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.869006

Daniele Checchi (Contact Author)

Università degli Studi di Milano - Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Aziendale (DEPA) ( email )

Milan, 20122
Italy
+39 02 5032 1519 (Phone)
+39 02 5032 1505 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

IRVAPP ( email )

Via Santa Croce 77
Trento, I-38122
Italy

Vitorocco Peragine

Università di Bari ( email )

Piazza Cesare Battisti 1
Bari, Taranto 70121
Italy

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