Value pluralism, trade-offs and efficiencies

Nikolai Hoberg and Stefan Baumgärtner
Additional contact information
Nikolai Hoberg: Leuphana University Lueneburg, Germany

No 311, Working Paper Series in Economics from University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics

Abstract: Political decision-makers face increasing demands to justify their actions with respect to multiple normative objectives or values. Here, we provide a general philosophical-economic clarification of the discussion of value pluralism, value-efficiency (i.e. efficiency with respect to values) and feasible relationships between values. We derive what relationships between values can exist in states of affairs that are valueefficient. In particular, we show that in a value-efficient state of affairs there is a tradeoff between at least two values, and that a win-win relationship between values is no indication of value-inefficiency when there are three or more values. Further, we connect these relationships to the opportunity costs of attaining a value to a higher degree. Lastly, we contrast Pareto-efficiency with value-efficiency and show that there can be a win-win relationship between values in a Pareto-efficient state of affairs. Our analysis provides insights that help decision-making in situations where there are multiple values at stake.

Keywords: efficiency; value pluralism; value trade-offs; welfarism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 H00 H43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2014-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Fors ... df/wp_311_Upload.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_311_Upload.pdf [303 See Other]--> https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/workingpapers/lue/pdf/wp_311_upload.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lue:wpaper:311

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series in Economics from University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Wagner ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).