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Equal Value Of Life And The Pareto Principle

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  • Hasman, Andreas
  • Østerdal, Lars Peter

Abstract

A principle claiming equal entitlement to continued life has been strongly defended in the literature as a fundamental social value. We refer to this principle as ‘equal value of life'. In this paper we argue that there is a general incompatibility between the equal value of life principle and the weak Pareto principle and provide proof of this under mild structural assumptions. Moreover we demonstrate that a weaker, age-dependent version of the equal value of life principle is also incompatible with the weak Pareto principle. However, both principles can be satisfied if transitivity of social preference is relaxed to quasi-transitivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Hasman, Andreas & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2004. "Equal Value Of Life And The Pareto Principle," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 19-33, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:20:y:2004:i:01:p:19-33_00
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Mann, 2007. "Comparing Interpersonal Comparisons in Utility Theory and Happiness Research," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 29-42, April.
    2. Martínez, Ricardo & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2022. "An axiomatic approach towards pandemic performance indicators," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    3. David Canning, 2013. "Axiomatic Foundations For Cost‐Effectiveness Analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(12), pages 1405-1416, December.
    4. Osterdal, Lars Peter, 2005. "Axioms for health care resource allocation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 679-702, July.
    5. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2023. "Entitlements to continued life and the evaluation of population health," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(3), pages 561-579, September.
    6. Ricardo Martínez & Juan D Moreno Ternero, 2021. "Pandemic performance," ThE Papers 21/09, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    7. Charles M. Harvey & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2010. "Cardinal Scales for Health Evaluation," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(3), pages 256-281, September.
    8. Moreno-Terneroy , Juan D & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2015. "The implications of equal value of life and prioritarianism for the evaluation of population health," DaCHE discussion papers 2015:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    9. Lars Østerdal, 2009. "The lack of theoretical support for using person trade-offs in QALY-type models," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 10(4), pages 429-436, October.
    10. Lars Peter Østerdal, 2004. "QALYs, Person Trade-Offs, and the Pareto Principle," Discussion Papers 04-10, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.

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