Da Bentham alla tassazione ottimale

This paper describes the rebirth of the utilitarian approach, with the social welfare function a là Bentham, after the crisis due to the emergence of the ordinalist microeconomic analysis. It is shown that Vickrey in 1945 had already anticipated the themes developed earlier by Harsanyi and later by Mirrlees. After a description of Mirrlees’s work, the paper discusses the situation in which you can use personalized lump-sum taxes, showing that there are critical consequences. The paper criticizes Mankiw’s thesis against the utilitarian approach, concluding with some policy prescriptions.