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Various authors have identified a consensus among economists as to how inequality should be quantified, namely by implementing the ‘axiomatic approach to inequality measurement’. However, empirical studies have revealed that this method is often in contradiction with the attitudes of ordinary citizens towards inequality. It is thus a relevant question why the axiomatic approach still commands support in academic applications. This article adopts a historical perspective and presents evidence for our main hypothesis: the axiomatic approach can be interpreted as a result of conventions that allowed specialists to overcome the indeterminacy of the concept ‘inequality’. An unintended consequence of today's measurement conventions appears to be the crowding out of non-scientific representations.
Keywords: economic inequality; economic methodology; inequality statistics; conventions; D31 personal income, wealth, and their distributions; D63 equity, justice, inequality, and other normative criteria and measurement
Journal Article. 9849 words.
Subjects: Moral Philosophy ; Corporate Social Responsibility ; Welfare Economics ; Political Economy ; Economic Sociology
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