Paul Segal es Profesor en King’s College London e Investigador en London School of Economics (LSE). Tiene un PhD en Economía por la Universidad de Oxford y sus investigaciones se centran en temas de desigualdad, pobreza, economía de los recursos naturales, historia económica y desarrollo. Sus trabajos han sido publicados en revistas académicas como Development and Change, Socio-Economic Review, British Journal of Sociology, Economic History Review, World Development, Handbook of Income Distribution, Journal of Economic Literature, entre otras.

Abstract: The modern study of economic inequality is based on the distribution of entitlements over goods and services. But social commentators at least since Rousseau have been concerned with a different aspect of economic inequality: that it implies that one person is entitled to command another person for their own personal ends. I call this inequality as entitlements over labor. I propose to measure entitlements over labor by calculating the extent to which top income groups can afford to buy the labor of others for the purpose of their personal consumption. Unlike standard inequality measures, this measure is not welfarist, but instead has its normative basis in relations of domination, hierarchy and social status between people. I estimate entitlements over labor in three high-inequality and two low-inequality countries and argue that inequality as entitlements over labor is socially and politically salient, capturing a side of inequality neglected by standard measures.

Autor: Paul Segal (King’s College London)

Organizan: Departamento de Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Revista Económica

Contacto: iie@econo.unlp.edu.ar