Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being

Charles Blackorby () and Walter Bossert ()

Cahiers de recherche from Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ

Abstract: This paper, which is to be published as a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, provides an introduction to social-choice theory with interpersonal comparisons of well-being. We argue that the most promising route of escape from the negative conclusion of Arrow's theorem is to use a richer informational environment than ordinal measurability and the absence of interpersonal comparability of well-being. We discuss welfarist social evaluation (which requires that the levels of individual well-being in two alternatives are the only determinants of their social ranking) and present characterizations of some important social-evaluation orderings.

Keywords: Arrow's theorem; social choice with interpersonal utility comparisons; welfarism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-ltv
Date: Written 2004
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http://www.cireq.umontreal.ca/publications/06-2004-cah.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being (2004)
Working Paper: INTERPERSONAL COMPARISONS OF WELL-BEING (2004)
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