Elitism and Stochastic Dominance

Stephen Bazen (1) , Patrick Moyes (2, 3)

1 GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille
2 GREThA - Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée
3 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne

Stochastic dominance has typically been used with a special emphasis on risk and inequality reduction something captured by the concavity of the utility function in the expected utility model. We claim that the applicability of the stochastic dominance approach goes far beyond risk and inequality measurement provided suitable adpations be made. We apply in the paper the stochastic dominance approach to the measurment of elitism which may be considered the opposite of egalitarianism. While the usual stochastic dominance quasi-orderings attach more value to more equal and more efficient distributions, our criteria ensure that the more unequal and the more the efficient the distribution, the higher it is ranked. two instances are provided by (i) comparisons of scientific performance across institutions like universities or departments and (ii) comparisons of affluence as opposed to poverty across countries.

Keywords: Decumulative distribution functions; Stochastic dominance; Regressive transfers; Elitism; Scientific Performance; Affluence

Domains: Economics and Finance

Stephen Bazen, Patrick Moyes. Elitism and Stochastic Dominance. 2011. ⟨halshs-00576585⟩