An economics-based rationale for the Rawlsian social welfare program

Oded Stark

No 137, University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics from University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics

Abstract: We show that a social planner who seeks to allocate a given sum in order to reduce efficiently the social stress of a population, as measured by the aggregate relative deprivation of the population, pursues a disbursement procedure that is identical to the procedure adhered to by a Rawlsian social planner who seeks to allocate the same sum in order to maximize the Rawlsian maximin-based social welfare function. Thus, the constrained minimization of aggregate relative deprivation constitutes an economics-based rationale for the philosophy-based constrained maximization of the Rawlsian social welfare function.

Keywords: Rawlsian social welfare function; Aggregate relative deprivation (ARD); Social stress; An algorithm of cost-effective policy response to ARD; Congruence of the algorithm with the Rawlsian social welfare program (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 D04 D63 H53 P51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Chapter: An Economics-Based Rationale for the Rawlsian Social Welfare Program (2020)
Working Paper: An economics-based rationale for the Rawlsian social welfare program (2020)
Working Paper: An Economics-Based Rationale for the Rawlsian Social Welfare Program (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:tuewef:137

DOI: 10.15496/publikation-48257

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