I survey the results of empirical research, showing that the opinions about distributive justice of the population at large are in sharp conflict with the assumptions of traditional welfare economics. I focus on the results concerning welfarism and concerning the Pigou-Dalton transfer criterion. At the same time, I show that recent developments in social choice theory are much more in line with the empirical results. This suggests that a better understanding of the complementarity between empirical and theoretical work might lead to a richer debate and to a greater awareness of the possible biases in the economic approach.
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Paper provided by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centrum voor Economische Studiën, Working Group Public Economics in its series Public Economics Working Paper Series with number
ces9809.
Length: 34 pp. Date of creation: 1998 Date of revision: Publication status: Published (French version) in Revue Economique, 1999, 50, pp. 811-831. Handle: RePEc:wpe:papers:ces9809
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