The economics of justice as fairness

Antonio Abatemarco and Francesca Stroffolini

No 2018-78, Economics Discussion Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy

Abstract: In this paper, the authors challenge the common interpretation of Rawls' Theory of Justice as Fairness by showing that this theory, as outlined in the restatement (Rawls, Justice as Fairness: a Restatement, 2001), goes well beyond the definition of a distributive value judgment, in such a way as to embrace efficiency issues as well. A simple model is discussed to support our interpretation of the difference principle, by which inequalities are shown to be permitted as far as they stimulate a greater effort in education in the population, and so economic growth. To their knowledge, this is the only possibility for the inequality to be "bought" by both the most-, and above all, the least-advantaged individual as suggested by the difference principle. Finally, by recalling the old tradition of "universal ex-post efficiency", the authors show that a unique optimal social contract does not exist behind the veil of ignorance; more precisely, the sole set of potentially Rawls-optimal social contracts can be identified a priori, and partial justice orderings derived accordingly.

Keywords: justice; Rawls; inequality; social contract (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-hpe and nep-mic
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http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2018-78
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/184919/1/1040946798.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The economics of justice as fairness (2017)
Working Paper: The Economics of Justice as Fairness (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201878

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