Welfare, Workfare, and Pareto Optimality

George E. Peterson
Additional contact information
George E. Peterson: Urban Institute

Public Finance Review, 1973, vol. 1, issue 3, 323-338

Abstract: A number of recent papers have argued that social transfers may be necessary to secure Pareto optimality, if there is utility interdependence between potential donors and potential recipients. This paper establishes the types of welfare support plans that would be Pareto-optimal on different assumptions about the nature of utility interdependence. In particular, it identifies the assumptions about utility interdependence that are required to make Pareto-optimal plans out of a negative income or wage subsidy. The paper derives an expression for society's group rate of substitution between a recipient's income and leisure, which is shown to be instrumental in analyzing the Pareto optimality of proposed welfare plans.

Date: 1973
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114217300100305 (text/html)

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:sae:pubfin:v:1:y:1973:i:3:p:323-338

DOI: 10.1177/109114217300100305

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Public Finance Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().