According to standard theory founded on Harsanyi (1953, 1955) a social welfare function can be appropriately based on the individual's approach to choice under uncertainty. We investigate whether people really do rank distributions according to the same principles irrespective of whether the...

We examine individuals’ distributional orderings in a number of contexts. This is done by using a questionnaire-experiment that is presented to respondents in any one of seven “flavours” or interpretations of the basic distributional problem. The flavours include inequality, risk, social...

According to standard theory founded on Harsanyi (1953, 1955) a social welfarefunction can be appropriately based on the individual's approach to choice underuncertainty. We investigate whether people really do rank distributions according tothe same principles irrespective of whether the...

We examine individuals' distributional orderings in a number of contexts. This is done by using a questionnaire-experiment that is presented to respondents in any one of seven "flavours" or interpretations of the basic distributional problem. The flavours include inequality, risk, social welfare...

Starting from the axiomatisation of polarisation contained in Esteban and Ray (1994) and Chakravarty and Majumdar (2001) we investigate whether people's perceptions of income polarisation is consistent with the key axioms. This is carried out using a questionnaire-experimental approach that...