IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/restud/v81y2014i3p1071-1101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Universal Social Orderings: An Integrated Theory of Policy Evaluation, Inter-Society Comparisons, and Interpersonal Comparisons

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Fleurbaey
  • Koichi Tadenuma

Abstract

We introduce the concept of a universal social ordering, defined on the set of pairs of an allocation and a preference profile of any finite population. It is meant to unify evaluations and comparisons of welfare (living standards) for individuals and populations of possibly different sizes and preferences. It can be used for policy evaluation, international comparisons, growth assessment, and inequality measurement. It even makes it possible to evaluate policy options that affect the size of the population or the preferences of its members. We study how to extend the theory of social choice in order to select such orderings on a rigorous axiomatic basis. We provide foundations for leximin as well as additively separable criteria. Key ingredients in this analysis are fairness principles in social aggregation, attitudes with respect to population size, and the bases of interpersonal comparisons. We discuss how this sheds light on recent developments in the empirical literature on international comparisons.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Fleurbaey & Koichi Tadenuma, 2014. "Universal Social Orderings: An Integrated Theory of Policy Evaluation, Inter-Society Comparisons, and Interpersonal Comparisons," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 1071-1101.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:81:y:2014:i:3:p:1071-1101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdu006
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Domenico Moramarco & Bram De Rock, 2022. "Nonparametric analysis of heterogeneous multidimensional fairness," Working Papers 621, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    2. Decerf,Benoit Marie A & Ferrando,Mery & Quinn,Natalie N., 2021. "Global Income Poverty Measurement with Preference Heterogeneity : Theory and Application," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9844, The World Bank.
    3. Didier Blanchet & Marc Fleurbaey, 2022. "Values, Volumes, and Price-Volume Decompositions: On Some Issues Raised (Again) by the Health Crisis," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 532-33, pages 71-88.
    4. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron & Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Pigou pushes preferences: decarbonisation and endogenous values," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-16, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    5. Maximilian Tallgauer & Christoph Schank, 2023. "Rethinking Economics Education for Sustainable Development: A Posthumanist Practice Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-14, June.
    6. Baland,Jean-Marie & Cassan,Guilhem & Decerf,Benoit Marie A, 2022. "Integrating Mortality into Poverty Measurement through the Poverty Adjusted Life Expectancy Index," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10133, The World Bank.
    7. Jean-Marie Baland & Guilhem Cassan & Benoit Decerf, 2021. "The Poverty-Adjusted Life Expectancy index: a consistent aggregation of the quantity and the quality of life," DeFiPP Working Papers 2101, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    8. Paolo Giovanni Piacquadio, 2017. "A Fairness Justification of Utilitarianism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 1261-1276, July.
    9. Chambers, Christopher P. & Ye, Siming, 2024. "Haves and have-nots: A theory of economic sufficientarianism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    10. Stavros A. Drakopoulos, 2024. "Value Judgements, Positivism and Utility Comparisons in Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 423-437, January.
    11. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron & Spuler, Fiona & Stern, Nicholas, 2022. "The economics of climate change with endogenous preferences," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. DECANCQ Koen & OLIVERA Javier & SCHOKKAERT Erik, 2018. "Program evaluation and ethnic differences: the Pension 65 program in Peru," LISER Working Paper Series 2018-21, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    13. Decancq, Koen & Nys, Annemie, 2021. "Non-parametric well-being comparisons," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    14. Rafael Treibich, 2019. "Welfare egalitarianism with other-regarding preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(1), pages 1-28, January.
    15. Matthew D. Adler & Koen Decancq, 2021. "Well-Being Measurement," Working Papers 2105, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    16. Sakamoto, Norihito, 2018. "Equity Criteria Based on the Dominance Principle and Individual Preferences: Refinements of the Consensus Approach," RCNE Discussion Paper Series 5, Research Center for Normative Economics, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    17. Erwin Ooghe & Erik Schokkaert & Hannes Serruys, 2023. "Fair Earnings Tax Reforms," CESifo Working Paper Series 10242, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:oup:restud:v:81:y:2014:i:3:p:1071-1101. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/restud .

    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.