Resource Egalitarianism with a Dash of Efficiency

Yves SPRUMONT

Cahiers de recherche from Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques

Abstract: We study the problem of defining inequality-averse social orderings over the space of allocations in a multi-commodity environment where individuals differ only in their preferences. We formulate notions of egalitarianism based on the axiom that any dominance between the consumption bundles of two individuals should be reduced. This Dominance Aversion requirement is compatible with Consensus, a weak version of the Pareto principle saying that an allocation y is better than x whenever everybody finds that everyone's bundle at y is better than at x. We identify two families of multidimensional leximin orderings satisfying Dominance Aversion and Consensus. We also discuss weaker forms of egalitarianism based on a new definition of multidimensional Lorenz dominance.

JEL-codes: D63 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-upt
Date: Written 2007

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