IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/metroe/v57y2006i1p1-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Taxation, Social Goods And The Distribution Of Freedom

Author

Listed:
  • Ernesto Screpanti

Abstract

The quantity of an individual's freedom is thought to coincide with the width of her opportunity set, and this is defined by taking account of budgetary, institutional and legal constraints to choices. A simple cardinal measure of freedom is proposed on the ground of which some exercises in comparative statics are worked out. It is shown that individual choice freedom may be widened when a new good is publicly provided free or at a low price. Furthermore, it is argued that progressive taxation redistributes freedom in favour of the poor, all the more so when public revenues are used to finance the public provision of goods, in which case overall freedom may be augmented.

Suggested Citation

  • Ernesto Screpanti, 2006. "Taxation, Social Goods And The Distribution Of Freedom," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 1-12, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:metroe:v:57:y:2006:i:1:p:1-12
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-999X.2006.00230.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-999X.2006.00230.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-999X.2006.00230.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prasanta Pattanaik & Yongsheng Xu, 1998. "On Preference and Freedom," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 173-198, April.
    2. Bossert Walter & Pattanaik Prasanta K. & Xu Yongsheng, 1994. "Ranking Opportunity Sets: An Axiomatic Approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 326-345, August.
    3. Sudgen, Robert, 1998. "The Metric of Opportunity," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 307-337, October.
    4. Gravel, N. & Laslier, J.F. & Trannoy, A., 1996. "Individual Freedom of Choice in a Social Setting," Papers 9625, Paris X - Nanterre, U.F.R. de Sc. Ec. Gest. Maths Infor..
    5. Gravel, Nicolas, 1994. "Can a Ranking of Opportunity Sets Attach an Intrinsic Importance to Freedom of Choice?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 454-458, May.
    6. 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).
    7. Martin van Hees, 1998. "On the Analysis of Negative Freedom," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 175-197, October.
    8. Jones, Peter & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Evaluating choice," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 47-65, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Yongsheng Xu, 2004. "On ranking linear budget sets in terms of freedom of choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 22(1), pages 281-289, February.
    11. Sen, Amartya, 1988. "Freedom of choice : Concept and content," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 269-294, March.
    12. Ernesto Screpanti, 2004. "Freedom, Time Constraints and Progressive Taxation," Department of Economics University of Siena 429, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    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. Ernesto Screpanti, 2009. "A Quasi‐Natural Measure Of Choice Freedom For Budget‐ And Time‐Constrained Opportunity Sets," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 715-723, November.

    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. 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.
    2. Xu, Yongsheng, 2003. "On ranking compact and comprehensive opportunity sets," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 109-119, April.
    3. James E. Foster, 2010. "Freedom, Opportunity and Wellbeing," Working Papers 2010-15, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    4. Antoinette Baujard, 2006. "Conceptions of freedom and ranking opportunity sets. A typology," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 200611, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    5. Arlegi, R. & Dimitrov, D.A., 2004. "On Procedural Freedom of Choice," Discussion Paper 2004-9, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    6. José Alcantud & Ritxar Arlegi, 2008. "Ranking sets additively in decisional contexts: an axiomatic characterization," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 147-171, March.
    7. Suzumura, Kotaro & Xu, Yongsheng, 2003. "Consequences, opportunities, and generalized consequentialism and non-consequentialism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 293-304, August.
    8. Martin Hees, 2010. "The specific value of freedom," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(4), pages 687-703, October.
    9. 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.
    10. Ballester, Miguel A. & De Miguel, Juan R., 2006. "On freedom of choice and infinite sets: The Suprafinite Rule," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 291-300, June.
    11. Gaetano Gaballo & Ernesto Savaglio, 2012. "On revealed diversity," Working Papers 254, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    12. Gekker, Ruvin & van Hees, Martin, 2006. "Freedom, opportunity and uncertainty: A logical approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 246-263, September.
    13. Gekker, Ruvin, 2001. "On the axiomatic approach to freedom as opportunity: a general characterization result," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 169-177, September.
    14. Ernesto Screpanti, 2009. "A Quasi‐Natural Measure Of Choice Freedom For Budget‐ And Time‐Constrained Opportunity Sets," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 715-723, November.
    15. Suzumura, Kotaro & Xu, Yongsheng, 2001. "Characterizations of Consequentialism and Nonconsequentialism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 423-436, December.
    16. Bervoets, Sebastian & Gravel, Nicolas, 2007. "Appraising diversity with an ordinal notion of similarity: An axiomatic approach," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 259-273, May.
    17. Pattanaik, Prasanta K. & Xu, Yongsheng, 2000. "On diversity and freedom of choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 123-130, September.
    18. Iwata, Yukinori, 2007. "A variant of non-consequentialism and its characterization," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 284-295, May.
    19. Baharad, Eyal & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2003. "Essential alternatives and set-dependent preferences--an axiomatic approach," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 121-129, April.
    20. 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.

    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:bla:metroe:v:57:y:2006:i:1:p:1-12. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0026-1386 .

    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.