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

This paper analyses the inequality between the regions of the Organization for Economic 13 Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries by using stochastic multi- 14 objective acceptability analysis and the associated multivariate Gini index. By consider- 15 ing a large number of possible combinations of weights, the distribution of the potential 16 rankings for each region is used to measure multidimensional inequality both within and 17 between countries. Our results show that beyond the expected two clubs of rich and poor 18 countries, a third group of countries emerges that belongs neither to the top nor to the 19 bottom of the ranking, an outcome that can be attributed to the presence of significant 20 economic differences among regions within those countries. Most of the inequality lies 21 between countries, but regional well-being also significantly varies within the same 22 countries and we find an inverse U-shape connection between regional well-being and 23 its inequality within the OECD member countries.