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Machine Learning Inference on Inequality of Opportunity

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Carlos Escanciano
  • Joel Robert Terschuur
Abstract
Equality of opportunity has emerged as an important ideal of distributive justice. Empirically, Inequality of Opportunity (IOp) is measured in two steps: first, an outcome (e.g., income) is predicted given individual circumstances; and second, an inequality index (e.g., Gini) of the predictions is computed. Machine Learning (ML) methods are tremendously useful in the first step. However, they can cause sizable biases in IOp since the bias-variance trade-off allows the bias to creep in the second step. We propose a simple debiased IOp estimator robust to such ML biases and provide the first valid inferential theory for IOp. We demonstrate improved performance in simulations and report the first unbiased measures of income IOp in Europe. Mother's education and father's occupation are the circumstances that explain the most. Plug-in estimators are very sensitive to the ML algorithm, while debiased IOp estimators are robust. These results are extended to a general U-statistics setting.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Carlos Escanciano & Joel Robert Terschuur, 2022. "Machine Learning Inference on Inequality of Opportunity," Papers 2206.05235, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.05235
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Moramarco, Domenico & Brunori, Paolo & Salas Rojo, Pedro, 2024. "Biases in inequality of opportunity estimates: measures and solutions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125442, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Jacquemain, Alexandre & Heuchenne, Cédric & Pircalabelu, Eugen, 2024. "A penalised bootstrap estimation procedure for the explained Gini coefficient," LIDAM Discussion Papers ISBA 2024005, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    3. Domenico Moramarco & Paolo Brunori & Pedro Salas-Rojo, 2024. "Biases in inequality of opportunity estimates: measures and solutions," Working Papers 675, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Domenico Moramarco & Paolo Brunori & Pedro Salas-Rojo, 2024. "Biases in inequality of opportunity estimates: measures and solutions," SERIES 02-2024, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", revised Aug 2024.

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