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The consistency of welfare judgements with a representative consumer

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  • Dow, James
  • Werlang, Sérgio Ribeiro da Costa

Abstract

This paper is about economies with a representative consumer. In general a representative consumer need not exist, although there are several well known sets of sufficient conditions under which Qne will. It is common practice, however, to use the representative consumer hypothesis without specifically assuming any of these. We show, firstly, that it is possible for the utility of the representative consumer to increase when every actual consumer is made worse off. This shows a serious shortcoming of welfare judgements based on the representatíve consumer. Secondly, in economies where this does not occur, there exists a social welfare function, which we construct, which is consistent with welfare judgements based on the utility of the representative consumer. Finally we provide a converse to Samuelson' s 1956 representative consumer result, which relates it to Scitovsky's community indifference curves.

Suggested Citation

  • Dow, James & Werlang, Sérgio Ribeiro da Costa, 1986. "The consistency of welfare judgements with a representative consumer," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 87, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    • Handle: RePEc:fgv:epgewp:87
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    Cited by:

    1. Richard A. Brecher & Ngo Van Long, 1989. "Trade Unions in an Open Economy: A General Equilibrium Analysis," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 65(3), pages 234-239, September.
    2. Michael Jerison, 2023. "Social welfare and the unrepresentative representative consumer," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(1), pages 5-28, February.
    3. Laurens CHERCHYE & Ian CRAWFORD & Bram DE ROCK & Frederic VERMEULEN, 2011. "Aggregation without the aggravation? Nonparametric analysis of the representative consumer," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces11.36, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    4. Chambers, Christopher P., 2012. "Inequality aversion and risk aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1642-1651.
    5. Andreas Chai & Christian Kiedaisch & Nicholas Rohde, 2021. "The saturation of household spending diversity and emergent properties of representative households," DeFiPP Working Papers 2104, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    6. Laurens CHERCHYE & Ian CRAWFORD & Bram DE ROCK & Frederic VERMEULEN, 2013. "Gorman revisited: nonparametric conditions for exact linear aggregation," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces13.05, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    7. Michael Jerison, 1997. "Nonrepresentative Representative Consumers," Discussion Papers 97-01, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    8. Chambers, Christopher P. & Hayashi, Takashi, 2023. "The structure of representative preference," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. Edward E. Schlee, 2001. "The Value of Information in Efficient Risk-Sharing Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 509-524, June.
    10. Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2016. "Social objectives in general equilibrium," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 99-102.
    11. Laurens Cherchye & Ian Crawford & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2015. "Revealed Preference and Aggregation," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2015-08, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

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