An Index for Economic Justice: The Case of Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Allameh Tabatabai University, member of college

Abstract

C
onsidering the normative nature of the theories of justice, a distinguished theory of justice could be formulated based on the fundamental teachings of Islam. Hence a new set of indexes are required to put this new concept to test. Through detailed study of the Islamic teachings, the research seeks to formulate a comprehensive theory on economic justice (based on various economic rights). In this theory, removing poverty and unjust inequality is one of the dimensions of justice, but by no means all of it. Then a composite indicator of economic justice was proposed based on this conceptual framework. The indicator was confirmed by 30 experts using the Delphi method with zero (0) as the worst (lowest) economic justice and one (1) as the best (highest) situation. Calculating this indicator for Iran’s economy during 2001-2010 showed a minor drop to 0.48 from 0.52. The most important factors in the deterioration of economic justice were the failure to comply with intergenerational justice, limited guarantee for property rights, and exploitation of common resources.

Keywords

References

Alkire, S. & Foster, J. (2010). ‘Designing inequality adjusted human development index’. OPHI Working Paper, No. 37. University of Oxford.
Alkire, S. (2007). ‘The missing dimension of poverty data’. OPHI Working paper. No.0. University of Oxford.
Atkinson, A.B. (2003). ‘Multidimensional deprivation: Contrasting social welfare and counting approaches’. Journal of Economic Inequality, 1(1).
Bandura, R. (2006). A survey of composite indices measuring country performance. New York: UNDP working paper.
Beheshti, M.H. (1999). Right and wrong in the Quran. Tehran: Boghee (in Persian).
Binmore, K. (2005). Natural justice. Oxford press.
Chapra, Muhammad Umar (2007). Muslim Civilization: The Causes of Decline and Need for Reform. Islamic Foundation.
Cowell, F. (2000). Measuring inequality. USA: Oxford University Press.
CBI (2014). Iran Central Bank Economic Report. Available at: www.cbi.ir/Category/EconomicReport_en.aspx.
Clark, B. and Gintis, H. (1978). ‘Rawlsian justice and economic systems’. Journal of Philosophy and Public Affairs, 7(4).
Demsetz, H. (1967). ‘Toward a Theory of Property Rights’. The American Economic Review, 57(2), Papers and Proceedings of the Seventy-ninth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association.
Dworkin, R. (1981). ‘What is Equality?’ Part 1: Equality of Welfare. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10(3).
Europian commission (2008). Composite indicators. At: http://composite-indicators.jrc.ec.europa.eu/FAQ.htm
Foster, J. and Alkire, S. (2009). ‘Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement’. OPHI Working Paper, No.7.5. University of Oxford.
Hakimi, M.R. (1988). Live. Tehran: Islamic Knowledge Office (in Persian).
Haughton & Khandker (2009). Handbook on poverty and inequality. Washington: World bank.
Iqbal, M. (1988). Distributive Justice and Need Fulfilment in an Islamic Economy. International Islamic University.
Khandoozi, S., Ehsan (2012). The Just Society. Tehran: I.S. University press (in Persian).
Klein, Ph. and Moore, G. (1982). ‘The leading indicator approach to economic forecasting’. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working paper 941.
Kolm, S.C. (1996). Modern Theories of Justice. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Konow, J. (2003). ‘Which is the fairest of all? A positive analysis of justice theories’. Journal of economic literature. 41(4).
Motahari, M. (1982). Women's Rights in Islam. Tehran: Sadra Pub (in Persian).
Motahari, M. (1990). 20 chapters. Tehran: Sadra Pub (in Persian).
Motahari, M. (2007). Divin justice. Tehran: Sadra Pub (in Persian).
Munda and Nardo (2005). Constructing consistent composite indicators. EUR 21834, EN, Joint Research Center, Ispra.
Munda and Nardo (2007). ‘Non-compensatory/ non-linear composite indicators for ranking countries’. Applied Economics.
OECD (2008). Handbook on constructing composite indicators. Paris: OECD Publications.
Okoli C. and Pawlowski S.D. (2004). The Delphi method as a research tool: an example, design considerations and applications. Information & Management; 42.
Parisi and Klick (2004). ‘Wealth, utility and human dimension’. Journal of law and liberty, 1(1).
Pesaran, H. and Esfahani, H.S. (2009). ‘Iranian economy in the twentieth century: a global perspective’. Iranian Studies, xx(x).
Phelps, E. (1987). Distributive justice. The new Palgrave. London: The Macmillan Press. Vol. 1.
Posner, Richard (1981). The economics of justice. Harvard University Press.
Qutb, S. (1953). Social Justice in Islam. Islamic Publications International.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.
Sadr, M.B. (2000). Our economics. Book extra Ltd.
Sandel, M. (2009). Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. New York: Allen Lane.
Sen, A. and Anand, S. (1997). Concepts of human development and poverty: a multidimensional perspective. UNDP: Human development papers.
Sen, A. and Anand, S. (2000). ‘The income component of human development index’. Journal of human development, 1(1).
Sen, A. (1997). On economic inequality with a substantial annex with James Foster ‘after a quarter century’, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tutunchian, I. (2009). Islamic money and banking, integrating money in capital theory. Singapore: Wiley Finance.
Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. New York: Basic Books.
World bank (2014) WDI database, available at: http://data.worldbank.org/country/iran-islamic-republic.
Iranian Economic Review
Volume 19, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
Spring 2015
Pages 193-210

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics