Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/52458 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 3632
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
The paper uses a veil of ignorance approach and income distribution data of developed countries to arrive at inequality corrected income rankings. While a risk neutral individual (based on year 2000 data) would have preferred to be born into the US rather than any European country in our sample except Luxembourg, a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 2 suffices to make several European countries look preferable. The paper also sheds light on the risk corrected average income on a gender basis and scans for times of diminished expectations, i.e. periods where the expected utility of being born into a country has reduced over time.
Subjects: 
income distribution
veil of ignorance
cross country comparison
JEL: 
D31
H23
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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