Treading a Fine Line: Characterisations and Impossibilities for Liberal Principles in Infinitely-Lived Societies

Michele Lombardi and Roberto Veneziani

The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, 2012, vol. 12, issue 1, 16

Abstract: This paper extends the analysis of liberal principles in social choice recently proposed by Mariotti and Veneziani (2009a) to infinitely-lived societies. First, some novel characterisations of inegalitarian leximax social welfare relations are derived based on the Individual Benefit Principle (IBP), which incorporates a liberal, non-interfering view of society. This is surprising because the IBP does not explicitly incorporate any preference for inequality, nor does it assign priority to well-off members of society. Second, some impossibility results are derived that highlight a general tension between standard fairness and efficiency axioms in social choice, and a liberal Principle of Non-Interference that generalises IBP.

Keywords: infinite utility streams; individual benefit principle; leximax; non-interference; impossibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1515/1935-1704.1899

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