Distributive Justice, Welfare Economics and Liberalism

J. H. Cooper

South African Journal of Economics, 1991, vol. 59, issue 1, 34-41

Abstract: “…whereas the normal way of testing a theory in positive economics is to test its conclusions, the normal way of testing a welfare proposition is to test its assumptions… The welfare cake…is so hard to taste that we must sample its ingredients before baking” ‐ J. de V. Graaff, Theoretical Welfare Economics. “An economist or policy maker who wants an ultimate answer to questions involving distribution, or questions involving choices among alternatives that are not comparable under the Pareto criterion, could use an Arrow Social Welfare Function for guidance. Unfortunately, Arrow showed that…Arrow functions do not exist” ‐ A. Feldman, “Welfare Econimics”, in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics.

Date: 1991
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.1991.tb00964.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:59:y:1991:i:1:p:34-41

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-2280

Access Statistics for this article

South African Journal of Economics is currently edited by Philip A. Black

More articles in South African Journal of Economics from Economic Society of South Africa Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().