The Social Policy Program of the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Middle East Technical University hosted Dr. Francisco Ferreira (World Bank) who's seminar was entitled "Inequality of Opportunity and Economic Development". Dr. Ferreira stressed the opportunity perspective in the discourse of welfare distribution. By giving empirical illustrations, he showed why the "inequality of opportunity" approach is important for considering fairness purposes. For instance, in an analysis done for Latin America, Ferreira's findings show that external circumstances-such as family background, gender, birthplace-- which we cannot control but can control our life, influence the distribution of per capita consumption likewise for other social outcomes (educational attainment, health). Dr. Ferreira lastly discussed how the "Inequality of Opportunity" perspective can affect poverty reduction policies.

Short Biography
Francisco Ferreira is the Lead Economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank, and has published widely on both theoretical and empirical issues related to inequality. Dr. Ferreira is a co-editor of the Journal of Economic Inequalityand a former Editor of Economía (the Journal of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA). He was a co-Director of the team that wrote the World Development Report 2006, on Equity and Development. He holds a B.Sc.(Econ.), M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and was a Professor of Economics in Rio de Janeiro between 1999 and 2002.
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