Globalization and increased integration has impacted on quality of life and living standards across the world. Attempts to evaluate the impact on income dispersion from this process have been extremely controversial. This new volume is the first real attempt to build up indices and a theoretical framework to deal with inequality of opportunity, and in order to enable social and political institutions to monitor increasing disparities in well-being and social exclusion. It examines the possible relationships between the recent acceleration in economic integration and inequality among persons and countries. The contributions in this volume cover different-sub fields of economics and examine inequality utilizing a uni-dimensional inequality criteria. They analyze both the negative and positive spillover effects of economic integration on individuals, social groups and nations as well as examining both theoretically and empirically, the multi-dimensional impact of globalization on the most deprived groups.

List of figures p. vii List of tables p. ix List of contributors p. x Introduction Francesco Farina and Ernesto Savaglio p. 1 Part I Inequality in an historical perspective p. 7 1 Globalization, income distribution and history Jeffrey G. Williamson p. 9 Part II Income inequality p. 33 2 From earnings dispersion to income inequality Anthony B. Atkinson and Andrea Brandolini p. 35 3 Social mobility Daniele Checchi and Valentino Dardanoni p. 63 4 The size of redistribution in OECD countries: does it influence wage inequality? Elisabetta Croci Angelini and Francesco Farina p. 81 Part III Globalization and well-being p. 105 5 Global health Simone Borghesi and Alessandro Vercelli p. 107 6 Economic integration and cross-country convergence: exercises in growth theory and empirics Jean-Luc Gaffard and Lionello F. Punzo p. 136 7 Cultural diversity, European integration and the Welfare State Ugo Pagano p. 178 8 The welfare state, redistribution and the economy: reciprocal altruism, consumer rivalry and second best Frederick van der Ploeg p. 192 Part IV Multidimensional inequality p. 223 9 Social welfare, priority to the worst-off and the dimensions of individual well-being Marc Fleurbaey p. 225 10 Three approaches to the analysis of multidimensional inequality Ernesto Savaglio p. 269 11 Multidimensional egalitarianism and the dominance approach: a lost paradise? Alain Trannoy p. 284 12 The normative approach to the measurement of multidimensional inequality John A. Weymark p. 303 Index p. 329