The Ethical Mirror

Maya Eden and Paolo G. Piacquadio

No 20624, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper identifies an ethical-mirror property of Paretian welfarism. If individuals’ other-regarding preferences enter their welfare, then any Paretian welfarist aggregation must closely reflect prevailing ethical views. Formally, social marginal welfare weights can deviate only slightly from a weighted average of individuals’ ethical marginal valuations; in large populations, this deviation is negligible under conservative calibrations. The result sharply restricts the choice of social welfare functions. Inequality aversion, paternalistic choices, and gender weights are then largely inherited from prevailing ethical beliefs. This is troubling when those beliefs are misguided: welfarism must either mirror them or reject the interpretation of other-regarding preferences as welfare-relevant.

Keywords: Paternalism; Pareto; Inequality aversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 D60 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-upt
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