IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gat/wpaper/2421.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Citizen Knowledge & the debate on information in welfare economics in perspective. Beyond the True-False and the Positive-Normative Entanglements

Author

Listed:
  • Antoinette Baujard

    (Université Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne, CNRS, Université Lyon 2, emlyon, GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne UMR 5824, F-42023, Saint-Etienne, France)

Abstract

This paper shows how the debate on information in Welfare Economics is enriched from the perspective of Lisa Herzog’s thesis on citizen knowledge, and conversely. First, the two sources of information for welfare enhancing public decisions, individual utilities and knowledge, need articulated justification, insofar as knowledge may be used to revise individual utilities. The process of preference revisions implicitly assumes the coincidence between knowledge and truth, but there are compelling arguments why this assumption should be debated. Second, public decisions are ultimately based on an additional third component of information: collective ethical norms. They are decisive, but their legitimacy is conditional to their transparency in the debate between experts and citizens. Transparency on which knowledge is judged relevant hence constitutes a minimal condition for the design of democratic infrastructures involving public decision making.

Suggested Citation

  • Antoinette Baujard, 2024. "Citizen Knowledge & the debate on information in welfare economics in perspective. Beyond the True-False and the Positive-Normative Entanglements," Working Papers 2421, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    • Handle: RePEc:gat:wpaper:2421
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2024/2421.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben McQuillin & Robert Sugden, 2012. "Reconciling normative and behavioural economics: the problems to be solved," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(4), pages 553-567, April.
    2. Roberto Fumagalli, 2016. "Decision sciences and the new case for paternalism: three welfare-related justificatory challenges," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 459-480, August.
    3. Antoinette Baujard, 2013. "Value judgments and economics expertise," Working Papers 1314, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    4. A. B. Atkinson, 2009. "Economics as a Moral Science," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(s1), pages 791-804, October.
    5. Sen, Amartya K, 1977. "On Weights and Measures: Informational Constraints in Social Welfare Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(7), pages 1539-1572, October.
    6. Roberto Fumagalli, 2021. "Theories of well-being and well-being policy: a view from methodology," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 124-133, January.
    7. Fumagalli, Roberto, 2024. "Preferences versus opportunities: on the conceptual foundations of normative welfare economics," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 77-101, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Antoinette Baujard, 2021. "Values in Welfare economics," Working Papers halshs-03244909, HAL.
    2. Antoinette Baujard, 2022. "Ethics and Technique in Welfare Economics: How Welfarism Evolves in the Making," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 73(6), pages 1039-1053.
    3. Nicolas Barbaroux & Michel Bellet, 2013. "Monetary policy and value judgments. Did we forget Myrdal's legacy?," Post-Print halshs-00759880, HAL.
    4. Maurice Salles, 2014. "‘Social choice and welfare’ at 30: its role in the development of social choice theory and welfare economics," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(1), pages 1-16, January.
    5. Christian Schubert, 2013. "Is Novelty Always a Good Thing? Towards an Evolutionary Welfare Economics," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Guido Buenstorf & Uwe Cantner & Horst Hanusch & Michael Hutter & Hans-Walter Lorenz & Fritz Rahmeyer (ed.), The Two Sides of Innovation, edition 127, pages 209-242, Springer.
    6. Nicolas Barbaroux & Michel Bellet, 2014. "Monetary Policy and Value Judgments : Did we forget Myrdal’s legacy ?," Working Papers 1408, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    7. Antoinette Baujard, 2016. "Utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism," Chapters, in: Gilbert Faccarello & Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis Volume III, chapter 40, pages 576-588, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Kotaro Suzumura, 2020. "Reflections on Arrow’s research program of social choice theory," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 219-235, March.
    9. Antoinette Baujard & Muriel Gilardone, 2017. "Sen is not a capability theorist," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 1-19, January.
    10. Paolo Silvestri, 2016. "Disputed (Disciplinary) Boundaries: Philosophy, Economics and Value Judgments," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 24(3), pages 187-221.
    11. 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.
    12. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    13. Marc Fleurbaey & Philippe Mongin, 2005. "The news of the death of welfare economics is greatly exaggerated," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 381-418, December.
    14. Jacob Barrett, 2019. "Interpersonal comparisons with preferences and desires," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 219-241, August.
    15. Paul Thistle, 1998. "Social Structure, Economic Performance and Pareto Optimality," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 161-173, October.
    16. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 2006-15, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
      • BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 14-2006, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    17. Laurie Bréban & Muriel Gilardone, 2019. "A missing touch of Adam Smith in Amartya Sen’s account of Public Reasoning: the Man Within for the Man Without," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-01-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    18. John A. Weymark, 2017. "Conundrums for nonconsequentialists," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 269-294, February.
    19. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter, 2004. "Interpersonal comparisons of well-being," Economic Research Papers 269605, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    20. Paul Anand & Laurence Roope, 2016. "The development and happiness of very young children," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 825-851, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Knowledge; Information; Welfarism; Demarcation; True-False demarcation; positive normative demarcation; Experts; Citizens; Democratic infrastructures of knowledge; Public decision-making;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:gat:wpaper:2421. 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: Nelly Wirth (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gateefr.html .

    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.