Equity and efficiency as components of a social welfare function

Satya Chakravarty

International Journal of Economic Theory, 2009, vol. 5, issue 2, 181-199

Abstract: An income distribution‐based abbreviated social welfare function is an increasing function of equity and efficiency. When inequality is of relative type, we characterize variants of the Atkinson–Kolm–Sen and the Shorrocks abbreviated welfare functions, where the variation results from the existence of a corresponding trade‐off parameter, and in each case if the parameter becomes one the two forms coincide. When the value of the parameter increases, equity gains more weight in the equity–efficiency trade‐off. For absolute inequality, we characterize the Blackorby–Donaldson–Kolm welfare function. Some implications of the lexicographic‐type equity used in the paper are also considered.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-7363.2009.00106.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:ijethy:v:5:y:2009:i:2:p:181-199

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1742-7355

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Economic Theory is currently edited by Kazuo Nishimura and Makoto Yano

More articles in International Journal of Economic Theory from The International Society for Economic Theory
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().