Mr. Fairmind Is Post-Welfarist: Opinions on Distributive Justice

Erik Schokkaert

Public Economics Working Paper Series from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centrum voor Economische Studiën, Working Group Public Economics

Abstract: I survey the results of empirical research, showing that the opinions about distributive justice of the population at large are in sharp conflict with the assumptions of traditional welfare economics. I focus on the results concerning welfarism and concerning the Pigou-Dalton transfer criterion. At the same time, I show that recent developments in social choice theory are much more in line with the empirical results. This suggests that a better understanding of the complementarity between empirical and theoretical work might lead to a richer debate and to a greater awareness of the possible biases in the economic approach.

Pages: 34 pp.
Date: 1998
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published (French version) in Revue Economique, 1999, 50, pp. 811-831.

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