Elitism and stochastic dominance

Abstract

RésuméLa dominance stochastique est traditionellement associée à la mesure du risque et de l'inégalité et repose sur la concavité de la fonction d'utilité. Nous prétendons que l'approche en terme de dominance stochastique a des implications qui vont au-delà de la mesure du risque et de l'inégalité pour peu que l'on procède à certains ajustements. Nous appliquons ici la dominance stochastique à la mesure de l'élitisme, notion qui peut d'une certaine manière être considérée comme le contraire de l'égalitarisme. Alors que les critères de dominance stochastique habituels accordent plus de valeur aux distributions qui sont à la fois moins inégales et plus efficientes, nos critères garantissent qu'une distribution sera d'autant mieux classée qu'une autre qu'elle est à la fois plus efficiente et plus inégale. Afin d'illustrer notre approche, nous proposons deux exemples : (i) la comparaison d'une vingtaine de départements d'économie en Europe du point de vue de la performance scientifique, et (ii) la comparaison de différents pays sur la base de la notion d'affluence par opposition à celle de pauvreté.Mots Clé : Fonction de Distribution Décumulative, Stochastic Dominance, Transfers Régressifs, Élitisme, Performance Scientifique, Affluence. Elitism and Stochastic DominanceAbstract Stochastic dominance has been typically used with a special emphasis on risk and inequality reduction something captured by the concavity of the utility function in the expected utility model. We claim that the applicability of the stochastic dominance approach goes far beyond risk and inequality measurement provided suitable adaptations be made. We apply in the paper the stochastic dominance approach to the measurement of elitism which may be considered the opposite of egalitarianism. While the usual stochastic dominance quasi-orderings attach more value to more equal and more efficient distributions, our criteria ensure that, the more unequal and the more efficient the distribution, the higher it is ranked. Two instances are provided by (i) comparisons of scientific performance across institutions like universities or departments, and (ii) comparisons of affluence as opposed to poverty between countries.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: D31, D63.

Multidimensional Measurement of Richness: Theory and an Application to Germany

“…Therefore, especially in the sociological literature on elites, members of the elitist group are distinct from the rest of the society with respect to their possibility to influence the development of society due to their income/wealth, status, intellect and abilities (see e.g. Hartmann, 2006;Bazen and Moyes, 2010).…”

An axiomatic approach to bibliometric rankings and indices

“…Now we can go from b to a by, first, taking a citation from one of the papers 1 1 published by b, transforming it into a paper 1 0 , and adding this extra citation to the paper 1 4 , transforming it into a paper 1 5 , and, second, taking a citation from one of the remaining papers 1 1 published by b, transforming it into a paper 1 0 , and adding this extra citation to the other remaining paper 1 1 , transforming it into a paper 1 2 . Contrary to the usual economic interpretation of Lorenz dominance that is often associated with the idea of promoting "equality" (Perny, Spanjaard, andStorme, 2006, Shorrocks, 1983), we use it in a dual way that promotes "elitism" (Bazen and Moyes, 2012). This point was also stressed by Albarrán et al (2011a, bottom of p. 53).…”

On the measurement of plutonomy

“…In addition, plutonomy's measurement focuses on the top of the income distribution rather than its bottom. These two distinctive characteristics make this paper's concern with plutonomy closely related to Bazen and Moyes's interest in elitism (Bazen and Moyes 2012). Whilst both elitism and plutonomy focus on the top part of a particular distribution (e.g., distribution of scientific performance and distribution of income), the distributional aspect emphasized and valued by each concept is different.…”

“…Thus, a concentration of resources at the top of the distribution is perceived as a social improvement. An additional distinction between the measure of elitism as developed by Bazen and Moyes (2012) and the measure of plutonomy presented in this paper resides in the nature of the threshold used. Bazen and Moyes's threshold for elitism is fixed at a specified level (as in poverty measurement) whereas the one used in this paper is expressed as a rank of the distribution.…”

“…It is important to mention thatBazen and Moyes (2012) used survival functions and a generalized version of the initial Lorenz curve in the context of elitism. 5 It is important to note that Varian's notion of envy and "envy-freeness" is defined at the individual level and in the space of consumption bundles.…”