Do Irrelevant Commodities Matter?

Marc Fleurbaey and Koichi Tadenuma ()
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Koichi Tadenuma: Faculty of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo

No 504, IDEP Working Papers from Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France

Abstract: We study the possibility of making social evaluations independently of individual preferences over non-consumed commodities. This is related to the well-known problem of performing international comparisons of standard of living across countries with different consumption goods. We prove impossibility results which suggest that such evaluations encounter difficulties when the objects of evaluation are allocations of ordinary commodities. We show how possibility results can be retrieved when the objects of evaluation are allocations of composite commodities or human functionings.

Keywords: Consumer Preferences, Social Choice, Irrelevant Commodities, Functionings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2005-01, Revised 2005-01
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Related works:
Journal Article: Do Irrelevant Commodities Matter? (2007)
Working Paper: Do irrelevant commodities matter? (2007)
Working Paper: Do Irrelevant Commodities Matter? (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iep:wpidep:0504

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