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Subjective value judgments of distributive justice and legal decision-making

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  • Mingli Zheng

    (University of Macau)

Abstract

Distributive justice is a fundamental issue in the legal decision-making. We use Savage’s framework to derive a representation of subjective value judgments of distributive justice from the coherence of the decision-maker’s preferences over income distributions. The representation function can incorporate, in a unified way, the widely held beliefs such as inequality aversion, desert, and egalitarianism. We illustrate the application of the justice representation functions in law and economics by studying the distribution rules for different beliefs of distributive justice.

Suggested Citation

  • Mingli Zheng, 2018. "Subjective value judgments of distributive justice and legal decision-making," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 177-194, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:apjors:v:2:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s41685-018-0077-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s41685-018-0077-1
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    Cited by:

    1. Moriki Hosoe, 2018. "Special issue (part II) on economic analysis of law, politics, and regions," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 79-82, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distributive justice; Deservedness; Savage axioms; Taxation; Contract;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)

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