Abstract
The search for a definition of equity is age-old, as testified by the medieval debates on the ‘just price’. Sometimes definitions have been adhered to and later abandoned again. This seems to apply to the definition of equity corresponding with the liberalist (in the European sense) outlook. This definition was: equity is the equality between an individual’s income and the value of its productive contribution to society. Today many do not adhere any more to this definition. Productive contributions made by different persons depend on, among other things, their inherited wealth and their inborn capabilities. Neither of them are necessarily equitably distributed over society’s citizens. Society itself does not distribute wealth equitably; and Nature does not distribute inborn capabilities — whatever their definition — equitably.
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© 1976 Alec Cairncross and Mohinder Puri
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Tinbergen, J. (1976). Equitable Income Distribution: a Quantitative Challenge. In: Cairncross, A., Puri, M. (eds) Employment, Income Distribution and Development Strategy: Problems of the Developing Countries. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-81529-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-81529-6_2
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