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Two Criteria for Social Decisions

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  • Marc Fleurbaey

    (Nuffield College, Oxford University, UK)

Abstract

This paper studies the ethical underpinnings of two social criteria which are prominent in the literature dealing with the problem of evaluating allocations of several consumption goods in a population with heteregenous preferences. The Pazner-Schmeidler criterion (Pazner-Schmeidler 1978) and the Walrasian criterion (Fleurbaey and Maniquet 1996) are prima facie quite different. But it is shown here that these criteria are related to close variants of the fairness condition that an allocation is better when every individual bundle in it dominates the average consumption in another allocation. In addition, the results suggest that the Pazner-Schmeidler criterion can be viewed as the best extension of the Walrasian criterion to non-convex economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Fleurbaey, 2004. "Two Criteria for Social Decisions," Economics Papers 2004-W27, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:nuf:econwp:0427
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    File URL: http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/papers/2004/w27/Twocriteria2.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc Fleurbaey & Peter Hammond, 2004. "Interpersonally comparable utility," Post-Print hal-00247066, HAL.
    2. Fleurbaey, Marc & Suzumura, Kotaro & Tadenuma, Koichi, 2005. "Arrovian aggregation in economic environments: how much should we know about indifference surfaces?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 22-44, September.
    3. Maniquet, François, 2008. "Social orderings for the assignment of indivisible objects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 199-215, November.
    4. Sprumont, Yves & Zhou, Lin, 1999. "Pazner-Schmeidler rules in large societies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 321-339, April.
    5. Maniquet, Francois, 1999. "A strong incompatibility between efficiency and equity in non-convex economies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 467-474, December.
    6. Koichi Tadenuma, 2005. "Egalitarian-equivalence and the Pareto principle for social preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 24(3), pages 455-473, June.
    7. Marc Fleurbaey, 2003. "On the informational basis of social choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 21(2), pages 347-384, October.
    8. 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.
    9. François Maniquet & Yves Sprumont, 2004. "Fair Production and Allocation of an Excludable Nonrival Good," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 627-640, March.
    10. Marc Fleurbaey & François Maniquet, 2005. "Fair social orderings when agents have unequal production skills," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 24(1), pages 93-127, September.
    11. Marc Fleurbaey & Kotaro Suzumura & Koichi Tadenuma, 2005. "The informational basis of the theory of fair allocation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 24(2), pages 311-341, April.
    12. Maniquet, Francois & Sprumont, Yves, 2005. "Welfare egalitarianism in non-rival environments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 155-174, February.
    13. repec:bla:econom:v:44:y:1977:i:173:p:81-88 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Varian, Hal R., 1974. "Equity, envy, and efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 63-91, September.
    15. GEVERS, Louis, 1986. "Walrasian social choice: some simple axiomatic approaches," LIDAM Reprints CORE 708, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    16. Marc Fleurbaey & François Maniquet, 2006. "Fair Income Tax," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(1), pages 55-83.
    17. M. Fleurbaey & F. Maniquet, 2008. "Fair social orderings," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 34(1), pages 25-45, January.
    18. Elisha A. Pazner & David Schmeidler, 1978. "Egalitarian Equivalent Allocations: A New Concept of Economic Equity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(4), pages 671-687.
    19. Amartya Sen, 1999. "The Possibility of Social Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 349-378, June.
    20. Marc Fleurbaey & Alain Trannoy, 2003. "The impossibility of a Paretian egalitarian," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 21(2), pages 243-263, October.
    21. Tadenuma, Koichi, 2002. "Efficiency First or Equity First? Two Principles and Rationality of Social Choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 462-472, June.
    22. M. Fleurbaey & F. Maniquet, 2000. "Fair Social Orderings With Unequal Production Skills," THEMA Working Papers 2000-17, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    23. Marc Fleurbaey, 2005. "Health, Wealth, and Fairness," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 7(2), pages 253-284, May.
    24. Marc Fleurbaey & Maurice Salles & John A. Weymark, 2008. "Justice, Political Liberalism and Utilitarianism," Post-Print hal-00246415, HAL.
    25. Charles Blackorby & David Donaldson, 1990. "A Review Article: The Case against the Use of the Sum of Compensating Variations in Cost-Benefit Analysis," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 23(3), pages 471-494, August.
    26. Thomson, William, 1988. "A study of choice correspondences in economies with a variable number of agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 237-254, December.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Koen Decancq & Marc Fleurbaey & François Maniquet, 2019. "Multidimensional poverty measurement with individual preferences," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(1), pages 29-49, March.
    2. Sprumont, Yves, 2012. "Resource egalitarianism with a dash of efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1602-1613.
    3. Chambers, Christopher P. & Ye, Siming, 2024. "Haves and have-nots: A theory of economic sufficientarianism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    4. Jang, Inkee, 2017. "The Pareto principle and resource egalitarianism," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 23-29.
    5. Bart Capéau & Liebrecht De Sadeleer & Sebastiaan Maes & André Decoster, 2020. "Nonparametric welfare analysis for discrete choice: levels and differences of individual and social welfare," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 674666, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    6. Kristof Bosmans & Z. Emel Öztürk, 2018. "An axiomatic approach to the measurement of envy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(2), pages 247-264, February.
    7. 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.
    8. SPRUMONT, Yves, 2009. "Relative Egalitarianism and Related Criteria," Cahiers de recherche 2009-02, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social welfare; social choice; fairness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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