IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-sub-13-00018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Welfare Functions

Author

Listed:
  • John A Weymark

    (Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

This article provides an introduction to the use of social welfare functions for the comparative evaluation of social alternatives. Three main approaches are considered: Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, Arrovian social welfare functions, and Sen's social welfare functionals. How the measurability and comparability of utility can be modelled and how limitations on the types of utility comparisons that are possible restricts the kinds of social welfare functions that can be considered is also discussed. Extensive social choice theory is used to deal with heterogeneous opinions about how to make utility comparisons.

Suggested Citation

  • John A Weymark, 2012. "Social Welfare Functions," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers vuecon-sub-13-00018, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-13-00018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/VUECON-13-00018.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Weymark, 2005. "Measurement theory and the foundations of utilitarianism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 527-555, December.
    2. Kevin W. S. Roberts, 1980. "Interpersonal Comparability and Social Choice Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(2), pages 421-439.
    3. Blackorby,Charles & Bossert,Walter & Donaldson,David J., 2005. "Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521532587.
    4. John Weymark, 1984. "Arrow's theorem with social quasi-orderings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 235-246, January.
    5. Hammond, Peter J, 1979. "Equity in Two Person Situations: Some Consequences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1127-1135, September.
    6. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A, 1984. "Social Choice with Interpersonal Utility Comparisons: A Diagrammatic Introduction," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 25(2), pages 327-356, June.
    7. Marc Fleurbaey & Philippe Mongin, 2005. "The news of the death of welfare economics is greatly exaggerated," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 381-418, December.
    8. Erwin Ooghe & Luc Lauwers, 2005. "Non-dictatorial extensive social choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 25(3), pages 721-743, April.
    9. Marc Fleurbaey & Kotaro Suzumura & Koichi Tadenuma, 2005. "The informational basis of the theory of fair allocation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 24(2), pages 311-341, April.
    10. Deschamps, Robert & Gevers, Louis, 1978. "Leximin and utilitarian rules: A joint characterization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 143-163, April.
    11. Blackorby, C. & Donaldson, D. & Weymark, J.A., 1990. "A Welfarist Proof Of Arrow'S Theorem," G.R.E.Q.A.M. 90a12, Universite Aix-Marseille III.
    12. Sen, Amartya K, 1979. "Personal Utilities and Public Judgements: Or What's Wrong with Welfare Economics?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(355), pages 537-558, September.
    13. Broome, John, 2006. "Weighing Lives," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199297702.
    14. Claude D'Aspremont & Louis Gevers, 1977. "Equity and the Informational Basis of Collective Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(2), pages 199-209.
    15. d'Aspremont, Claude & Gevers, Louis, 2002. "Social welfare functionals and interpersonal comparability," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 459-541, Elsevier.
    16. Mandler, Michael, 2001. "Dilemmas in Economic Theory: Persisting Foundational Problems of Microeconomics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195145755.
    17. Sen, Amartya K, 1977. "On Weights and Measures: Informational Constraints in Social Welfare Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(7), pages 1539-1572, October.
    18. John A. Weymark & Anna B. Khmelnitskaya, 2000. "Social choice with independent subgroup utility scales," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(4), pages 739-748.
    19. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    20. Basu, K. & Pattanaik, P. K. & Suzumura, K. (ed.), 1995. "Choice, Welfare, and Development: A Festschrift for Amartya K. Sen," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198287896.
    21. I. M. D. Little, 1952. "Social Choice and Individual Values," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60, pages 422-422.
    22. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63, pages 309-309.
    23. Sen, Amartya Kumar, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Scholarly Articles 3612779, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    24. Sen, Amartya, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 152-157, Jan.-Feb..
    25. Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A., 1980. "A single-parameter generalization of the Gini indices of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 67-86, February.
    26. , R., 2007. "Can intergenerational equity be operationalized?," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(2), June.
    27. Abram Burk, 1938. "A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 52(2), pages 310-334.
    28. Sen, Amartya, 1974. "Informational bases of alternative welfare approaches : Aggregation and income distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 387-403, November.
    29. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1984. "Social criteria for evaluating population change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 13-33, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Morreau & John A Weymark, 2015. "Measurement Scales and Welfarist Social Choice," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 15-00008, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    2. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter, 2004. "Interpersonal comparisons of well-being," Economic Research Papers 269605, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    3. d'Aspremont, Claude & Gevers, Louis, 2002. "Social welfare functionals and interpersonal comparability," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 459-541, Elsevier.
    4. Kotaro Suzumura, 2002. "Introduction to social choice and welfare," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 442, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2002. "In Defense of Welfarism," Cahiers de recherche 2002-02, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    6. Mongin, Philippe, 2019. "Interview of Peter J. Hammond," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 50, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    7. Walter Bossert & Kohei Kamaga, 2020. "An axiomatization of the mixed utilitarian–maximin social welfare orderings," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(2), pages 451-473, March.
    8. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 1997. "Birth-Date Dependent Population Ethics: Critical-Level Principles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 260-284, December.
    9. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 1996. "Leximin population ethics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 115-131, April.
    10. Kamaga, Kohei, 2018. "When do utilitarianism and egalitarianism agree on evaluation? An intersection approach," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 41-48.
    11. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 2006-15, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
      • BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 14-2006, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    12. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2005. "Multi-profile welfarism: A generalization," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 24(2), pages 253-267, April.
    13. Bleichrodt, Han, 1997. "Health utility indices and equity considerations," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 65-91, February.
    14. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00906152 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bossert, Walter, 1998. "Welfarism and rationalizability in allocation problems with indivisibilities1," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 133-150, March.
    16. Hirofumi Yamamura, 2017. "Interpersonal comparison necessary for Arrovian aggregation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(1), pages 37-64, June.
    17. Weymark, John A., 1998. "Welfarism on economic domains1," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 251-268, December.
    18. Antoinette Baujard, 2016. "Utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism," Chapters, in: Gilbert Faccarello & Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis Volume III, chapter 40, pages 576-588, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2020. "Arrow’s decisive coalitions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 463-505, March.
    20. Marc Fleurbaey & Philippe Mongin, 2005. "The news of the death of welfare economics is greatly exaggerated," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 381-418, December.
    21. John A. Weymark, 2017. "Conundrums for nonconsequentialists," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 269-294, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Arrovian social welfare function; Bergson–Samuelson social welfare function; social welfare functional; welfare economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-13-00018. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.html .

    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.