A Pragmatic Approach to Embedding Equity Considerations into Growth-Focused Policy

A Pragmatic Approach to Embedding Equity Considerations into Growth-Focused Policy | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article A Pragmatic Approach to Embedding Equity Considerations into Growth-Focused Policy Zachary Turk This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7791726/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This paper presents an approach to embedding equity into measurements of economic growth and subsequently many environmental and public policy decisions. Building on Atkinson’s equally distributed equivalent (EDE) concept, economic growth is decomposed into distribution-preserving and inequality-monitoring components. A measure of society’s inequality aversion is then estimated geometrically, followed by EDE growth as a resulting simple transformation from mean growth. The approach is implemented on data from the LIS, OECD, and World Bank covering 130 country–datasets from the 1970's to 2022. Advanced economies typically display inequality-increasing growth which depresses EDE growth relative to mean growth, whereas many developing economies exhibit inequality-reducing trajectories that raise EDE growth. Replacing mean growth with EDE growth in the Simple Ramsey Rule approach to social discounting modifies many national recommendations -- modestly on average but materially when inequality dynamics are pronounced, altering the valuation of long-lived public projects and assets. JEL codes: D63, H43, O43 Economic growth Inequality Elasticity of marginal utility of consumption Equally distributed equivalent Wealth effect Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7791726","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":543259513,"identity":"91ab00a5-5e6d-43dc-8915-022e3df17079","order_by":0,"name":"Zachary Turk","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABFUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYHACNhiDmeEDAwMPgwSIBQYJ+LXwABUyziBZCzMPiEVIi3z74WcPfu45zGAvkfvY2LbtjgyDdPPTzYVt9+wa2JMPYNPC2JNmbtjz7DADj0S6cXJu2zMeBpljZrdnthUnN/A8w2oNM0MOmwTPAZCWNObDuW2HeexvJJjd5m1LSGaQyDHA6hH+N2ySf2BaLIFaGCTSv0G15H/ApoVHIodNGmZLMiNYSw7YFjsgA6v3JSSemUnLHEjn4TnzjNmw5xxYS9ntGecSEth4nmF1mHx/8jPJNwes5djb05glfpQdtgc6bNvtgrIEe3725AdYrYGAZh4MocQ2POqBoA5TyB6/jlEwCkbBKBhBAAAK2lan4LiY4wAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Universität Hamburg","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zachary","middleName":"","lastName":"Turk","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-10-06 13:23:27","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7791726/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7791726/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":95892398,"identity":"97867d83-36b1-44ea-a744-41c2e84ad1ea","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-11-14 06:39:08","extension":"json","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":3306,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"95a3c09f841c4d899622f1169b0b0357.json","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7791726/v1/beb070b653f1f2e9696ac1bc.json"},{"id":98438143,"identity":"9c6e8bcc-37e0-4214-b92f-e8a81d209cd7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-17 16:58:42","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":680736,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"GGIcompleteOctober20252.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7791726/v1_covered_7ee7a2ce-3155-4117-89e0-3cf5ae4bc6d7.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"A Pragmatic Approach to Embedding Equity Considerations into Growth-Focused Policy","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Economic growth, Inequality, Elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, Equally distributed equivalent, Wealth effect","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7791726/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7791726/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis paper presents an approach to embedding equity into measurements of economic growth and subsequently many environmental and public policy decisions. 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