Trannoy
Alain Trannoy
Publications
This chapter reviews the literature about inequality and welfare with a particular focus on whether Europe has a special sensitivity to these matters or specific outcomes. It is argued that both statements are likely to be true, which raises the possibility of a causal link. Europe has relatively good results in terms of inequality and welfare in comparison with other continents and more specifically America, because these issues matter for European people. Still, research needs to be fostered in at least 5 areas that are detailed at the end of this review. Specific attention is devoted to the contribution of other social sciences and natural sciences (cognitive science) to the development of our knowledge for the field of inequality and welfare.
Outre les difficultés conjoncturelles liées au faible cours du nickel, l’économie néo‐calédonienne souffre de faibles gains de productivité, d’une compétitivité insuffisante et de fortes inégalités de revenus. Les auteurs de la note, Catherine Ris, Alain Trannoy et Étienne Wasmer, montrent comment s’attaquer à ces trois handicaps et définir une stratégie de croissance de long terme. La transformation progressive des ressources naturelles en actif pérenne grâce à un fonds souverain, des mesures favorisant la concurrence et l’ouverture internationale, un investissement substantiel dans la formation et une politique fiscale plus redistributive sont les principales pistes proposées.
The approach of equality of opportunity is becoming ubiquitous in the social justice literature. Marc Fleurbaey [1994], [2008] and John Roemer [1993], [1998] have played a major role in transmitting ideas put forth by philosophers and in transforming these ideas in models of social justice that can be absorbed by economists. The ideas of compensation and responsibility are defined in a different way by these two authors and we show that hybrid concepts are meaningful. More specifically, we propose a new principle of natural reward, ?reward on average,? which is compatible with the principle of compensation ex post in a quite general setting. Furthermore, we show how to introduce the idea of a social determinism in private choices in Fleurbaey?s approach.
C’est un fait, les discriminations sur le marché du travail ont un coût social. Manquement à l’égalité, elles entament la confiance dans le pacte républicain. Moins perceptible peut-être mais tout aussi indéniable, elles ont aussi un coût économique. Sur-chômage, perte d’activité, mauvaise allocation de la main-d’œuvre, gâchis de qualifications et de potentiels individuels, … les pertes liées aux discriminations dans l’emploi sont plutôt bien identifiées. Reste à chiffrer le manque à gagner.
During the last third of the twentieth century, political philosophers actively debated about the content of distributive justice; the ruling ethical view of utilitarianism was challenged by various versions of equality of opportunities. Economists formulated several ways of modeling these ideas, focusing upon how individuals are placed with respect to opportunities for achieving various outcomes, and what compensation is due to individuals with truncated opportunities. After presenting a review of the main philosophical ideas (section 2), we turn to economic models (sections 3 and 4). We propose a reformulation of the definition of economic development, replacing the utilitarian measure of GDP per capita with a measure of the degree to which opportunities for income acquisition in a nation have been equalized. Finally, we discuss issues that the econometrician faces in measuring inequality of opportunity, briefly review the empirical literature (section 6), and conclude (section 7).
No abstract is available for this item.
The purpose of this article is to offer a non-technical selective survey for a general audience about how economists have progressively handled the concept of equality of opportunity. The key idea is that equality of opportunity not only deals with ex-ante inequalities, something that the name already suggests, but also with ex-post inequalities which makes the analysis quite different from that of the capability approach. The article is structured in three parts. First, we review the main theoretical issues about inequality of opportunity. We then follow by looking at the measurement issues and by presenting some empirical results. We finally provide an overview about the challenges faced by policies aiming at enhancing equality of opportunity.
No abstract is available for this item.
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Cet article décrit deux réformes, la modulation des allocations familiales en fonction du revenu et le nouvel abaissement du plafonnement du quotient familial. Ces réformes annoncent la fin du principe d’égal sacrifice, qui sous-tendait le mécanisme de quotient familial, et son quasi-remplacement par un principe forfaitaire. Nous étudions l’impact financier sur les ménages concernés et suggérons d’assumer les choix faits en simplifiant le système actuel, complexe, par une aide forfaitaire de type crédit d’impôt.
[eng] This article describes two recent reforms, the means-testing, of family benefits and further reduction of the ceiling of the “quotient familial”. These reforms announce the end of the principle of equal sacrifice, which underpinned the “quotient familial” mechanism in French taxation, and its quasi-replacement by a lump-sum principle. We evaluate the financial impact of the reforms on affected households and suggest to consistently assume the choices made by simplifying the current system, too complex, by a simple universal transfer, such as a tax credit.
