Assessing Risky Social Situations

Marc Fleurbaey

No 703, IDEP Working Papers from Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France

Abstract: This paper analyzes social situations in the context of risk. A new argument is proposed in order to defend the ex-post approach against Diamond’s (1967) famous critique of Harsanyi’s (1955) utilitarian theorem. It leads to a characterization of the criterion consisting in computing the expected value of the “equal-equivalent”. Characterizations of the ex-post maximin and leximin criteria, as well as a variant of Harsanyi’s theorem, are also obtained. It is examined how to take account of concerns for ex-ante fairness within this ex-post approach. Related issues are also addressed, such as the rescue problem or preference for catastrophe avoidance.

Keywords: Risk; Social Welfare; ex ante; ex post; Fairness; Harsanyi’s Theorem. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2007-01, Revised 2007-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Assessing risky social situations (2010)
Working Paper: Assessing risky social situations (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iep:wpidep:0703

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