The Informational Basis of the Theory of Fair Allocation

Marc Fleurbaey, Kotaro Suzumura, 興太郎 鈴村, コウタロウ スズムラ, Koichi Tadenuma and 宏一 蓼沼

No 122, Discussion Paper from Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: The theory of fair allocation is often favourably contrasted with the social choice theory in the search for escape routes from Arrow's impossibility theorem. Its success is commonly attributed to the fact that it is modest in its goal vis-a-vis social choice theory, since it does not aspire for a full-fledged ordering of options, and settles with a subset of "fair" options. We show that its success may rather be attributable to a broadened informational basis thereof. To substantiate this claim, we compare the informational basis of the theory of fair allocation with the informational requirements of social choice theory.

JEL-codes: D63 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2002-11
Note: This version: November 2002 (First version: July 2001), This paper is derived from an earlier draft of our paper entitled "Informational requirements for social choice in economic environments". The authors thank A. Trannoy for comments, and participants at seminars in Cergy and Rochester, and the 5th International Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare in Alicante. Financial support from the Ministry of Education of Japan through Grant-in-Aid No. 10045010 ("Economic Institutions and Social Norms: Evolution and Transformation") is gratefully acknowledged.
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Related works:
Journal Article: The informational basis of the theory of fair allocation (2005)
Working Paper: The informational basis of the theory of fair allocation (2005)
Working Paper: The Informational Basis of the Theory of Fair Allocation (2002)
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