Objective interpersonal comparisons of utility

Kevin Roberts

Social Choice and Welfare, 1996, vol. 14, issue 1, 79-96

Abstract: This paper examines the problem of distilling conflicting interpersonal comparisons into a single set of interpersonal comparisons. The mapping that achieves this has a richer co-domain than all social choice problems (and a richer domain than most social choice problems). The set of mappings satisfying a mild set of restrictions is very small. If interpersonal comparisons embody ratio-scale comparability then the mapping is Cobb-Douglas in form; if interpersonal comparisons embody no more than level and difference comparability then the mapping must be dictatorial and it is impossible to combine different interpersonal comparisons.

Date: 1996
Note: Received: 16 February 1995/Accepted: 13 October 1995
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