Regional Well-Being and its Inequality in the OECD Member Countries

This paper analyses the inequality between the regions of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries by using stochastic multi-objective acceptability analysis and the associated multivariate Gini index. By considering a large number of possible combinations of weights, the distribution of the potential rankings for each region is used to measure multidimensional inequality both within and between countries. Our results show that beyond the expected two clubs of rich and poor countries, a third group of countries emerges that belongs neither to the top nor to the bottom of the ranking, an outcome that can be attributed to the presence of significant economic differences among regions within those countries. Most of the inequality lies between countries, but regional well-being also significantly varies within the same countries and we find an inverse U-shape connection between regional well-being and its inequality within the OECD member countries.