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Consumption dynamics and inequality of opportunity with an application to Uganda
Author(s) -
Brunori Paolo,
Palmisano Flaviana,
Peragine Vito
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
review of development economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1467-9361
pISSN - 1363-6669
DOI - 10.1111/rode.12357
Subject(s) - economics , inequality , perspective (graphical) , ex ante , consumption (sociology) , extension (predicate logic) , recession , set (abstract data type) , microeconomics , econometrics , public economics , macroeconomics , mathematics , sociology , computer science , mathematical analysis , social science , geometry , programming language
This paper proposes the adoption of an opportunity egalitarian perspective to assess and compare growth processes and their distributional implications. To this aim, a set of graphical tools are introduced that allow one to evaluate the role of growth and recessions in the evolution of individuals’ opportunities over time. These tools satisfy the ex post principle of equality of opportunity and represent an extension of the “opportunity growth incidence curve,” a framework proposed by the literature to evaluate growth according to the ex ante principle of equality of opportunity. This measurement framework is applied to evaluate the economic dynamic between 2009 and 2011 in Uganda. The results show that despite a reduction in the real value of household consumption and a surge in outcome inequality, its effects appear to be less dramatic when the ex post equality of opportunity perspective is invoked.