Opportunities as Chances: Maximising the Probability that Everybody Succeeds

Marco Mariotti and Roberto Veneziani

Economic Journal, 2018, vol. 128, issue 611, 1609-1633

Abstract: We model opportunities in society as ‘chances of success’, that is as they are commonly described by practitioners. We show that a classical liberal principle of justice together with a limited principle of social rationality imply that the social objective should be to maximise the chance that everybody in society succeeds. Technically, this means using a ‘Nash’ welfare criterion. A particular consequence is that the failure of even only one individual must be considered maximally detrimental. We also study a refinement of this criterion and its extension to problems of intergenerational justice.

Date: 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12467

Related works:
Working Paper: Opportunities as chances: maximising the probability that everybody succeeds (2012)
Working Paper: Opportunities as chances: maximising the probability that everybody succeeds (2012)
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