IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v38y2009i1p209-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measures of freedom

Author

Listed:
  • D'Agata, Antonio

Abstract

According to the capability approach and more orthodox theories of individual well-being, freedom is an important ingredient of individual welfare. In operationalising these theories, therefore, it is crucial to have a practical measure of freedom. This paper analyses the measures of freedom proposed by Pattanaik and Xu, Steiner and Carter, Kramer, and Rosenbaum. We provide two interpretations of the first three measures. It is shown that one of these interpretations can be useful in empirical applications, while the other, together with additional arguments, considerably weakens Kramer's measure of freedom. Finally, it is shown that Rosenbaum's measure is not satisfactory as well because it yields counterintuitive results.

Suggested Citation

  • D'Agata, Antonio, 2009. "Measures of freedom," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 209-214, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:38:y:2009:i:1:p:209-214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W5H-4T84K2D-1/2/6ce68ac7575689378711a7c83655a0e9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin van Hees, 2004. "Freedom of choice and diversity of options: Some difficulties," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 22(1), pages 253-266, February.
    2. Eckehard F. Rosenbaum, 2000. "On Measuring Freedom," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 205-227, April.
    3. Martin van Hees, 1998. "On the Analysis of Negative Freedom," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 175-197, October.
    4. Anand, Paul & van Hees, Martin, 2006. "Capabilities and achievements: An empirical study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 268-284, April.
    5. K. K. Lancaster, 2010. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1385, David K. Levine.
    6. Tania Burchardt & Julian Le Grand, 2002. "Constraint and Opportunity: Identifying Voluntary Non-Employment," CASE Papers case55, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    7. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(2), pages 132-132.
    8. Prasanta K. PATTANAIK & Yongsheng XU, 1990. "On Ranking Opportunity Sets in Terms of Freedom of Choice," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1990036, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    9. Tania Burchardt & Julian Le Grand, 2002. "Constraint and Opportunity: Identifying Voluntary Non-Employment," CASE Papers 055, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Briec, Walter & Dumas, Audrey & Stenger, Agathe, 2013. "On the standard achievement and well-being indexes and their relation to the Hicks–Moorsteen productivity index," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 900-909.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jun Matsuyama & Kenji Mori, 2010. "Freedom and achievement of well-being in the adaptive dynamics of capabilities," TERG Discussion Papers 252, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    2. Antoinette Baujard, 2006. "Conceptions of freedom and ranking opportunity sets. A typology," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 200611, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    3. Xu, Yongsheng, 2003. "On ranking compact and comprehensive opportunity sets," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 109-119, April.
    4. Kuklys, W. & Robeyns, I., 2004. "Sen’s Capability Approach to Welfare Economics," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0415, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Pattanaik, Prasanta K. & Xu, Yongsheng, 2000. "On Ranking Opportunity Sets in Economic Environments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 48-71, July.
    6. Rommeswinkel, Hendrik, 2011. "Measuring Freedom in Games," MPRA Paper 106426, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Mar 2021.
    7. Pattanaik, Prasanta K. & Xu, Yongsheng, 2000. "On diversity and freedom of choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 123-130, September.
    8. Jun Matsuyama & Kenji Mori, 2011. "Freedom And Achievement Of Well‐Being And Adaptive Dynamics Of Capabilities," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 494-511, July.
    9. Karen Hofmann & Dominik Schori & Thomas Abel, 2013. "Self-Reported Capabilities Among Young Male Adults in Switzerland: Translation and Psychometric Evaluation of a German, French and Italian Version of a Closed Survey Instrument," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 723-738, November.
    10. Bleichrodt, Han & Quiggin, John, 2013. "Capabilities as menus: A non-welfarist basis for QALY evaluation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 128-137.
    11. Greco, Giulia & Skordis-Worrall, Jolene & Mkandawire, Bryan & Mills, Anne, 2015. "What is a good life? Selecting capabilities to assess women's quality of life in rural Malawi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 69-78.
    12. Keith Dowding, 2011. "Republican freedom, rights, and the coalition problem," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 10(3), pages 301-322, August.
    13. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    14. Katrak, Homi, 1998. "Economic analyses of Industrial Research Institutes in developing countries: the Indian experience," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 337-347, August.
    15. Amir, Shmuel, 1995. "Welfare maximization in economic theory: Another viewpoint," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 359-376, August.
    16. Ernesto Screpanti, 2006. "Taxation, Social Goods And The Distribution Of Freedom," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 1-12, February.
    17. Veisten, Knut, 2007. "Contingent valuation controversies: Philosophic debates about economic theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 204-232, April.
    18. Jimena Galindo & Levent Ülkü, 2020. "Diversity relations over menus," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(2), pages 229-242, August.
    19. Marva Stithou & Yiannis Kountouris & Phoebe Koundouri, 2011. "A Choice Experiments Application in Transport Infrastructure: A case study on travel time savings, accidents and pollution reduction," DEOS Working Papers 1116, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    20. Akpalu, Wisdom & Dasmani, Isaac & Aglobitse, Peter B., 2011. "Demand for cooking fuels in a developing country: To what extent do taste and preferences matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 6525-6531, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:38:y:2009:i:1:p:209-214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.