We develop a normative approach to the measurement of inequality of opportunity. That is, we measure inequality of opportunity by the welfare gain obtained in moving from the actual income distribution to the optimal income distribution of the total available income. Our study brings together the main approaches in the literature: we axiomatically characterize social welfare functions, we obtain prominent allocation rules as their optima, and we derive familiar classes of inequality of opportunity measures. Our analysis captures moreover the key philosophical distinctions in the literature: ex post versus ex ante compensation, and liberal versus utilitarian reward.

我们开发了一种衡量机会不平等的规范方法。也就是说，我们通过从实际收入分配转变为总可用收入的最优收入分配中获得的福利收益来衡量机会的不平等。我们的研究汇集了文献中的主要方法：我们对社会福利功能进行了公理化的描述，我们获得了突出的分配规则作为它们的最佳选择，并且得出了机会度量不等式的熟悉类别。我们的分析还捕获了文献中的主要哲学差异：事后补偿与事前补偿，以及自由主义与功利主义报酬。