Evaluating distributions of opportunities from behind a veil of ignorance: A robust approach
Nicolas Gravel  1@  , Mathieu Faure  1@  , Tista Kundu  2@  , Francesco Andreoli  3, 4@  
1 : Aix-Marseille School of Economics  (AMSE)  -  Website
Aix-Marseille Université - AMU : EAAddthis new organization
AMU, AMSE, 5 boul. Maurice Bourdet, 13001 Marseille Cedex -  France
2 : Centre de sciences humaines de New Delhi  (CSH)  -  Website
Ministère de l\'Europe et des Affaires étrangères, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
"2, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road New Delhi 110011 India" -  France
3 : University of Verona  (University of Verona)  -  Website
4 : Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research  (LISER)

This paper provides a robust criterion for evaluating the allocation of opportunities among various groups. We envisage the problem of comparing these allocations from the view point of an ethical observer placed behind a veil of ignorance wit respect to the group in which she could end up. We give justification for such an ethical observer to evaluate these allocations of opportunities on the basis of an expected valuation of the expected utility of being in a group assuming an equal probability
of falling in every group. We identify a criterion for comparing societies that is agreed upon by all such ethical observers who exhibit aversion to inequality of opportunities. The criterion happens to be a conic extension of zonotope inclusion criterion. We provide various interpretations of this criterion as well as some illustrations of its possible use, notably in the Indian context where we evaluate the inequalities of educational opportunities among castes and genders o¤ered by Indian states.


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