policy design

(...) fairness cannot be sought only in final allocations, but in the rules governing the processes by which such allocations are arrived at. (Bourguignon, et al. ao comentar Nozick)

(...) affirmative action for Afro-Brazilians ou lower Indian castes may or may not make sense. There may indeed be cases where linking policy to types can be harmful, through making policies unnecessarily conflictual or increasing the salience of discriminatory social sistems based on the caracterization of people. Furthermore, types themselves are likely to be contested and dynamic, and to be endogenous, in long-run paths of economic and social change. Policy design, requires context-specific analysis that recognizes these possibbilities. (Bourguignon, et al. 2007, p. 240, in JEInequal)