Fairness Versus Welfare: Notes on the Pareto Principle, Preferences, and Distributive Justice / Louis Kaplow, Steven Shavell.

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Kaplow, Louis

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w9622.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2003.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: In Fairness versus Welfare, we advance the thesis that social policies should be assessed based entirely on their effects on individuals' well-being. This thesis implies that no independent weight should be accorded to notions of fairness (other than many purely distributive notions). We support our thesis in three ways: by demonstrating how notions of fairness perversely reduce welfare, indeed, sometimes everyone's well-being; by revealing numerous other deficiencies in the notions, including their lack of sound rationales; and by providing an account of notions of fairness that explains their intuitive appeal in a manner that reinforces the conclusion that they should not be treated as independent principles in policy assessment. In this essay, we discuss these three themes and comment on issues raised by Richard Craswell, Lewis Kornhauser, and Jeremy Waldron.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w9622 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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April 2003.

In Fairness versus Welfare, we advance the thesis that social policies should be assessed based entirely on their effects on individuals' well-being. This thesis implies that no independent weight should be accorded to notions of fairness (other than many purely distributive notions). We support our thesis in three ways: by demonstrating how notions of fairness perversely reduce welfare, indeed, sometimes everyone's well-being; by revealing numerous other deficiencies in the notions, including their lack of sound rationales; and by providing an account of notions of fairness that explains their intuitive appeal in a manner that reinforces the conclusion that they should not be treated as independent principles in policy assessment. In this essay, we discuss these three themes and comment on issues raised by Richard Craswell, Lewis Kornhauser, and Jeremy Waldron.