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Social evaluations when populations differ in size

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  • Jean‐Yves Duclos
  • Agnès Zabsonré

Abstract

Assessments of “social welfare” do not usually take into account population sizes. This can lead to serious social evaluation flaws, particularly in contexts in which policies can affect demographic growth. We develop in this paper a little‐known though ethically attractive approach to correcting the flaws of traditional social evaluations, an approach that is sensitive to population sizes and that is based on critical‐level generalized utilitarianism (CLGU). Traditional CLGU is extended by considering arbitrary orders of welfare dominance and ranges of “poverty lines,” as well as values for the “critical level” of how much a life must be minimally worth to contribute to social welfare. We apply these social evaluation methods to rank Canada across 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2006 and to estimate normatively and statistically robust lower and upper bounds of critical levels over which these rankings can be made. Évaluations sociales quand les populations diffèrent par la taille. Les évaluations du bien‐être social ne tiennent pas compte habituellement de la taille des populations. Cela entraîne des failles sérieuses dans les évaluations sociales, particulièrement dans des contextes où les politiques peuvent affecter la croissance démographique. Ce texte utilise une approche peu connue mais attrayante sur le plan éthique pour corriger les failles dans les évaluations traditionnelles. Il s'agit d'une approche sensible à la taille de la population et qui est basée sur l'utilitarisme généralisé de niveau critique (UGNC). Cette approche est généralisée en considérant des ordres arbitraires de dominance de bien‐être et des intervalles de lignes de pauvreté, ainsi que des valeurs pour le ‘niveau critique’ à savoir combien une vie doit valoir pour contribuer au bien‐être social. On applique ces méthodes d’évaluation pour comparer et classer les distributions du Canada de 1976, 1986, 1996, et 2006, et pour estimer normativement et statistiquement des bornes inférieures et supérieures robustes des niveaux critiques pour lesquels ces classements peuvent être faits.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean‐Yves Duclos & Agnès Zabsonré, 2014. "Social evaluations when populations differ in size," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(2), pages 605-633, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:canjec:v:47:y:2014:i:2:p:605-633
    DOI: 10.1111/caje.12085
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Blackorby,Charles & Bossert,Walter & Donaldson,David J., 2005. "Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521532587, September.
    2. Wen‐Hao Chen & Jean‐Yves Duclos, 2011. "Testing for poverty dominance: an application to Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 781-803, August.
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    1. Lars Osberg, 2015. "Book Review of Beyond GDP: Measuring Welfare and Assessing Sustainability," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(3), pages 479-484, September.

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