Intertemporal Social Evaluation

Charles Blackorby, Walter Bossert and David Donaldson

Chapter 9 in Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, 2007, pp 131-154 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract A social-evaluation functional assigns a social ranking of alternatives to each information profile in its domain. In the classical multi-profile model of social choice, profiles are restricted to welfare information: all non-welfare information is implicitly assumed to be fixed. Because of this, the conventional approach does not allow us to discern the way in which the functional makes use of non-welfare information. For that, multiple non-welfare profiles are needed. Blackorby, Bossert and Donaldson (2005a) analyze a framework in which non-welfare information may vary across information profiles. Each information profile includes a vector of individual utility functions which represent welfare information and a vector of functions which describe social and individual non-welfare information. See also Kelsey (1987) and Roberts (1980) for approaches to social choice where non-welfare information is explicitly modelled. A social-evaluation functional is welfarist if a single ordering of utility vectors, together with the utility information in a profile, is sufficient to rank all alternatives. The ordering of utility vectors is called a social-evaluation ordering. Welfarism is a consequence of three axioms: unlimited domain, Pareto indifference and binary independence of irrelevant alternatives. Unlimited domain requires that all logically possible profiles are in the domain of the functional.

Keywords: Social Choice; Birth Date; Utility Level; Social Ranking; Irrelevant Alternative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Working Paper: Intertemporal Social Evaluation (2005)
Working Paper: Intertemporal Social Evaluation (2005)
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230236769_9

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