IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-1-4039-4406-1_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Social Choice

In: Welfare Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Yew-Kwang Ng

    (Monash University)

Abstract

The concept of Pareto optimality leads to situations in which it is impossible to make someone better off without making others worse off. Moreover it offers no guidance on the choice involved in making some better off and some worse off. In Chapter 3 we discussed welfare criteria that provide sufficient conditions for social improvement. But the results we obtained there are still incomplete in two aspects. First, we have no answer for cases in which the compensation test is met but the distributional one is not, and vice versa. Second, the criterion that we find acceptable (Little’s Criterion) is based on judgments about distributional desirability. How do we reach such judgments? In Chapter 4 the discussion of the magnitude of welfare changes reduces (but not completely) the inadequacy of Chapter 3 in respect of the first aspect. But the incompleteness of the second aspect has yet to be overcome. The vacuum can be filled by a specific social welfare function (SWF), but how do we obtain such a function? A dictator might say that ‘The SWF should just be my preference function. Whatever I prefer or whatever I think is good for society should prevail.’ But a dictated solution is not palatable to most people.

Suggested Citation

  • Yew-Kwang Ng, 2004. "Social Choice," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Welfare Economics, chapter 5, pages 92-126, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-4039-4406-1_5
    DOI: 10.1057/9781403944061_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-4039-4406-1_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.