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The chapter suggests two methodologies to measure inequality of opportunity in health in Israel, an ex-ante and an ex-post approach. In both cases, following the strategy recently suggested by Trannoy, Tubeuf, Jusot, and Devaux (2010), the chapter starts by introducing the production function of health, taking into account circumstances (the father’s years of education, his country of birth, the religion of the individual, his or her country of birth, age and gender) as well as effort variables (the level of education of the individual, his or her occupation and a variable describing his or her smoking habits).

The chapter also suggests then a decomposition of the overall health inequality into a legitimate and an illegitimate component, using the mean logarithmic deviation as inequality index, such a breakdown being applied to both the ex-ante and the ex-post approaches to equality of opportunity.

Purpose – We analyze equality of opportunity for earnings acquisition in France between 1973 and 1993 defining individual circumstances by parental earnings. We compare two different definitions of circumstances. In the first one they are measured by the father's earnings level, in the second one by the father's rank in the earnings distribution.

Methodology – First we use stochastic dominance tools. Then we decompose the evolution of inequality of opportunity using the mean logarithmic deviation and the results of regressions of descendants’ earnings on their parents’ earnings.

Findings – Inequality of opportunity has remained stable when conditioning on the earnings level of the father, whereas it has diminished when conditioning on his rank in the earnings distribution. The former result is explained by the stable intergenerational earnings elasticity. The latter by the decreasing wage inequality in the previous generation.

Originality – Our analysis emphasizes that the assessment of equality of opportunity and its evolution is very sensitive to the partition of circumstances used. Moreover, it stresses the complementarity between the discrete and the continuous approaches for measuring inequality of opportunity.

The purpose of this paper is to decompose inequality in Sri Lanka by population subgroups and income sources.

The study is based on the latest Sri Lankan Household Income and Expenditure Survey. The study firstly sketches an inequality profile for Sri Lanka and then investigates the principle components of inequality by applying several decomposition techniques. Essentially a decomposable class of inequality measures were computed by considering households characteristics such as geographic location/sector, gender, education and type of employment. Inequality within and between population subgroups/sectors in the distribution of expenditure was done by employing the Theil's entropy index, mean logarithmic deviation, and the half the squared coefficient of variation. Concentration curves and indices were utilized to decompose inequality by expenditure components.

The empirical findings are broadly encouraging. Decomposition analysis results reveal that in all groups used, the between‐group inequality accounts only for a very small part of the overall inequality. Thus, reducing inequality between the household groups would have only limited effect on reducing the overall inequality. Results confirm the fact that inequality in Sri Lanka was driven by relatively higher levels of expenditure inequalities of those at the top of the expenditure distribution. Decomposition estimates of the Gini index by expenditure sources via Rao's method revealed that the distribution of non‐food expenditure was more asymmetric as compared to food expenditure. Findings in general point to the wisdom of considering the redistribution of economic resources within‐sectors and sub‐groups rather than between‐sectors and sub‐groups if the intention is to cost effectively reduce overall inequalities in Sri Lanka. However, in practice an optimal‐mix of within and between‐group policies would be required in addressing overall inequality.

This is the first study that analyzes the latest Sri Lankan Household Income and Expenditure Survey to decompose inequality by population subgroups and income sources.

We adopt a standard distributional impact methodology, based on Atkinson's cost of inequality approach, to estimate the degree of implicit redistribution created through public funding of health insurance in Canada. The first stage of the exercise is to determine the public health insurance benefits received by families of various age and composition and to add these to measured after-tax incomes. In our base case, which uses the Atkinson Mean Logarithmic Deviation as inequality index, we find that accounting for public health insurance benefits implies a reduction in inequality equivalent to 2.4% of per capita income. We then model the implications of moving to a hypothetical fully privatized system while proportionately refunding to individuals the tax revenues saved in doing so. This would give rise to a further 2.4% equivalent per capita income reduction resulting from increased inequality in the distribution of after-tax income. Thus, for this scenario, moving from public financing of health insurance in Canada to a fully privatized system implies an overall increase in inequality equivalent to a loss of 4.8% of per capita income. This corresponds to an increase of about 25% in existing inequality. Not surprisingly, the impact of publicly financed health insurance in reducing inequality is strongest for the elderly.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the structure of overall inequality in the EU-15 by investigating the extent to which total inequality is attributed to inequality between or within the individual countries. Also, the paper examines whether the contribution of between-country and within-country components changed in the period between 1996 to 2008, before the outbreak of the economic crisis.

The paper applies a decomposition analysis by population subgroup utilizing micro-data from the ECHP and EU-SILC surveys. A number of inequality indices are employed to capture the different aspects of inequality and test the robustness of the results.

The analysis shows that the between-countries differences account only for a small part of overall inequality in the EU-15. Furthermore, the contribution of the between county component to total inequality has shrunk dramatically during the examined period. The overall EU inequality has been affected disproportionally by income disparities at the various parts of the income distribution in different countries.

Policies aiming to reduce inequality within each country would be far more effective in reducing overall inequality in the EU than policies targeting to reduce only disparities between member states.

The findings question the effectiveness of EU policy priorities to decrease inequality that have mainly focused on reducing cross-country and/or regions differences regarding certain macroeconomic indicators such as per-capita income (or GDP). The evidence suggests that the social protection system provides a useful tool in explaining the differences in inequality between countries and their contribution to overall EU inequality.

This paper aims to prevent gasket sealing failure in engineering, accurately predict gasket life, extend system life and improve sealing reliability. The accelerated life test method of flexible graphite composite–reinforced gaskets is established, the life distribution law of flexible graphite composite–reinforced gaskets is revealed, and the life prediction method of flexible graphite composite–reinforced gaskets with different allowable leakage rates is proposed, which can provide a reference for the life prediction of other types of gaskets.

In this study, flexible graphite composite–reinforced gaskets were tested for long-term high-temperature sealing performance on a multi-sample gasket accelerated life test rig. The data were also analyzed using the least squares method and the K-S hypothesis calibration method. A gasket time-dependent leakage model and an accelerated life model were also developed. Constant stress-accelerated life tests were conducted on flexible graphite composite–reinforced gaskets. On this basis, a gasket life prediction method at different allowable leakage rates was proposed.

The life distribution law of flexible graphite composite–reinforced gaskets is revealed. The results show that the life of the gasket obeys the Weibull distribution. The time-correlated leakage model and accelerated life model of the gasket were established. And the accelerated life test method of the flexible graphite composite–reinforced gasket was established. The life distribution parameters, accelerated life model parameters and life estimates of gaskets were obtained through tests. On this basis, a gasket life prediction method under different leakage rates was proposed, which can be used as a reference for other types of gaskets.

The research in this paper can better provide guidance for the use and replacement of gaskets in the project, which is also very meaningful for predicting the leakage condition of gaskets in the bolted flange connection system and taking corresponding control measures to reduce energy waste and pollution and ensure the safe operation of industrial equipment.

A multi-specimen gasket-accelerated life test device has been developed, and the design parameters of the device have reached the international advanced level. The life distribution law of the flexible graphite composite–reinforced gasket was revealed. The accelerated life test method for the flexible graphite composite–reinforced gasket was established. The life prediction method of the flexible graphite composite–reinforced gasket under different allowable leakage rates was proposed.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2023-0254/

This paper studies the cross-country differences in conventional measures of inequality of opportunity in Europe in the space of individual disposable incomes. Exploiting two recent waves of the EUSILC database reporting information on family background (2005 and 2011), we provide estimates of inequality of opportunity in about 30 European countries for two sufficiently distant data points, allowing a check of consistency for country rankings. In addition, we exploit two observations available for most of the countries to explore the relationship between many institutional dimensions and inequality of opportunity, finding evidence of negative correlation with educational expenditure (especially at the pre-primary level) and passive labour market policies.

The distributional impacts of replacing an income tax that has graduated marginal rates by a flat tax are complex. Typically the flat tax rate will be less than the top marginal rate under the pre-existing tax, leading to gains for the wealthiest. On the other hand, real-world proposals generally combine this with increases in personal exemptions that benefit some of the lowest income taxpayers. The result is that flat tax proposals usually redistribute from the middle to the extremes.

This chapter studies the distribution of labour earnings among employees within the EU using data from Wave 2007-1 of the EU-SILC. The ranking of countries by median full-time equivalent monthly gross earnings shows Eastern European nations at the bottom and Luxembourg at the top; earnings differences are sizeable, both across and within countries. Taking the euro area and the EU-25 as a whole, inequality is higher when earnings are measured in euro at market exchange rates than at purchasing power parities. Unsurprisingly, the wage distribution is narrower in the euro area than in the EU-25, which includes the poorer Eastern European countries joining the Union in 2004. The higher inequality observed for the EU-25 is largely attributable to between-country differences, which in turn reflect differences in returns to individual attributes more than in workforce composition.