Equity and economic theory: reflections on methodology and scope

This paper provides an introduction to the recent literature on ordinal distributive justice. Its objetive is to explain the process of the mathematical analysis of fairness and to consider its potential for solving real allocative problems by means of several illustrative examples

Unionism and peer-referencing

This study assesses the “fair-wage-effort” hypothesis, by examining (a) the relationship between relative wage comparisons and job satisfaction and quitting intensions, and (b) the relative ranking of stated effort inducing-incentives, in a novel dataset of unionised and non-unionised European employees. By distinguishing between downward and upward-looking wage comparisons, it is shown that wage comparisons to similar workers exert an asymmetric impact on the job satisfaction of union workers, a pattern consistent with inequity-aversion and conformism to the reference point. Moreover, union workers evaluate peer observation and good industrial relations more highly than payment and other incentives. In contrast, non-union workers are found to be more status-seeking in their satisfaction responses and less dependent on their peers in their effort choices The results are robust to endogenous union membership, considerations of generic loss aversion and across different tenure profiles. They are supportive of the individual egalitarian bias of collective wage determination and self-enforcing effort norms.EPICURUS, a project supported by the European Commission through the 5th Framework Programme “Improving Human Potential” (contract number: HPSE-CT-2002-00143

Equity and economic theory: reflections on methodology and scope.

This paper provides an introduction to the recent literature on ordinal distributive justice. Its objetive is to explain the process of the mathematical analysis of fairness and to consider its potential for solving real allocative problems by means of several illustrative examples.Fairness; Equity; Distributive justice;

Copula Correlation: An Equitable Dependence Measure and Extension of Pearson's Correlation

In Science, Reshef et al. (2011) proposed the concept of equitability for measures of dependence between two random variables. To this end, they proposed a novel measure, the maximal information coefficient (MIC). Recently a PNAS paper (Kinney and Atwal, 2014) gave a mathematical definition for equitability. They proved that MIC in fact is not equitable, while a fundamental information theoretic measure, the mutual information (MI), is self-equitable. In this paper, we show that MI also does not correctly reflect the proportion of deterministic signals hidden in noisy data. We propose a new equitability definition based on this scenario. The copula correlation (Ccor), based on the L1-distance of copula density, is shown to be equitable under both definitions. We also prove theoretically that Ccor is much easier to estimate than MI. Numerical studies illustrate the properties of the measures

How are population-based funding formulae for healthcare composed?

Population-based funding formulae act as an important means of promoting equitable health funding structures. To evaluate how policy makers in different jurisdictions construct health funding formulae and build an understanding of contextual influences underpinning formula construction we carried out a comparative analysis of key components of funding formulae across seven high-income and predominantly publically financed health systems: New Zealand, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, the state of New South Wales in Australia, the Canadian province of Ontario, and the city of Stockholm, Sweden.Methods Core components from each formula were summarised and key similarities and differences evaluated from a compositional perspective. We categorised approaches to constructing funding formulae under three main themes: identifying factors which predict differential need amongst populations; adjusting for cost factors outside of needs factors; and engaging in normative correction of allocations for ‘unmet’ need. Results We found significant congruence in the factors used to guide need and cost adjustments. However, there is considerable variation in interpretation and implementation of these factors. Conclusion Despite broadly similar frameworks, there are distinct differences in the composition of the formulae across the seven health systems. Ultimately, the development of funding formulae is a dynamic process, subject to availability of data reflecting health needs, the influence of wider socio-political objectives and health system determinants