Inequality aversion and separability in social risk evaluation

Marc Fleurbaey and Stéphane Zuber

Economic Theory, 2013, vol. 54, issue 3, 675-692

Abstract: This paper examines how to satisfy “independence of the utilities of the dead” (Blackorby et al. in Econometrica 63:1303–1320, 1995 ; Bommier and Zuber in Soc Choice Welf 31:415–434, 2008 ) in the class of “expected equally distributed equivalent” social orderings (Fleurbaey in J Polit Econ 118:649–680, 2010 ) and inquires into the possibility to keep some aversion to inequality in this context. It is shown that the social welfare function must either be utilitarian or take a special multiplicative form. The multiplicative form is compatible with any degree of inequality aversion, but only under some constraints on the range of individual utilities. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Keywords: Risk; Ex post equity; Independence of the utilities of the dead; D63; D71; D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Working Paper: Inequality aversion and separability in social risk evaluation (2013)
Working Paper: Inequality aversion and separability in social risk evaluation (2013)
Working Paper: Inequality aversion and separability in social risk evaluation (2011)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00199-012-0730-2

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