Systems of Benevolent Utility Functions

Ted Bergstrom ()

Journal of Public Economic Theory, 1999, vol. 1, issue 1, 71-100

Abstract: This paper studies systems of utility functions in which each person's utility depends on his or her own consumption as well as on the utilities of others. We consider the question of when a system of interdependent utility functions induces unique utility functions over allocations and identifies the class of transformations on interdependent utility functions that are equivalent in the sense of inducing the same preferences over allocations. We show that well‐behaved systems of this kind can be studied by means of the theory of dominant‐diagonal matrices and that the theory of dominant‐diagonal matrices with finitely many elements extends in a satisfactory way to denumerable matrices. The theory of denumerable dominant diagonal matrices allows an elegant analysis of systems of intergenerational benevolence. We also revisit and extend the theory of two‐sided altruism as formulated by Kimball and by Hori and Kanaya.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (62)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1097-3923.00004

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:jpbect:v:1:y:1999:i:1:p:71-100

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1097-3923

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economic Theory is currently edited by Rabah Amir, Gareth Myles and Myrna Wooders

More articles in Journal of Public Economic Theory from Association for Public Economic Theory Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().