Essays on Individual Decision Making and Social Welfare

These essays by eminent economist Prasanta K. Pattanaik deal with two distinct areas. (i) the theory of decision making by individuals; and (ii) welfare economics and the theory of social choice. The papers in the first group are all concerned with situations outside the conventional frameworks of rational choice under perfect certainty and uncertainty. Essays in the second group are concerned with the classical problem of aggregation of preferences and welfare judgments. Some deal with the formal modeling of individual rights, and the measurement of freedom - concluding with measurement of living standards. The volume will be useful to researchers and students of welfare economics. Besides economists, students and teachers of psychology, political science, and philosophy will also find them of interest. Contributors to this volume - C. R. Barrett, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, U.K.; M. Salles, Institut SCW, MRSH, Universite de Caen, France; R. Deb, Dedman College, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.; S. Barbera, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i d'Historia Economica and CODE, Facultat de Ciencies Economiques i Empresarials, Spain; T. Bandyopadhyay, Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, U.S.A.; I. Dasgupta, School of Economics, University of Nottingham, U.K.; B. Peleg, Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Center for the Study of Rationality, Feldman Building, Givat-Ram, Jerusalem, Israel; S. Nitzan, Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat - Gan, Israel; W. Gaertner, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Universitat Osnabruck, Osnabruck, Germany; K. Suzumura, Institute of Economic research, Hitotsubashi University, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan; L. Razzolini, Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.; Y. Xu, Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Economics, Georgia State University, Atlanta, U.S.A.