This paper shows that, in a partially welfarist framework that permits discounting, per-period social evaluations can be consistent with a timeless social ordering only if social principles lead to the repugnant conclusion. The same result applies if per-period social evaluations are replaced by...

This paper analyzes variable-population social-evaluation principles in a framework where outcomes are uncertain. In a static model, we provide characterizations of expected-utility versions of Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarian rules.

This paper provides a survey of normative approaches to inequality measurement, to be published as a chapter in a volume of income inequality. We present general methods for deriving ethical inequality indexes from social-evaluation orderings such as the Atkinson-Kolm-Sen and Kolm procedures.

We propose the concept of a universal social ordering, defined on the set of pairs of an allocation and a preference profile of any finite population. It is meant to unify evaluations and comparisons of social states with populations of possibly different sizes with various characteristics. The...

An early death is, undoubtedly, a serious disadvantage. However, the compensation of short-lived individuals has remained so far largely unexplored, probably because it appears infeasible. Indeed, short-lived agents can hardly be identified ex ante, and cannot be compensated ex post. We argue...

This paper analyzes social situations in the context of risk. A new argument is proposed in order to defend the ex-post approach against Diamond’s (1967) famous critique of Harsanyi’s (1955) utilitarian theorem. It leads to a characterization of the criterion consisting in computing the...

We study the possibility of making social evaluations independently of individual preferences over non-consumed commodities. This is related to the well-known problem of performing international comparisons of standard of living across countries with different consumption goods. We prove...

This paper provides a robust normative evaluation of the spectacular growth episode that India has experienced in the last 15 years. Specifically, the paper compares the evolution, between 1998, 1996 and 2001 of the distribution of several important individual attributes on the basis of...

Le propos de cet article est une evaluation critique des methodes de rapprochement entre les faits et la theorie economique. Il s'agit, plus precisement, de questionner les methodes econometriques actuellement en vigueur relativement a l'epistemologie scientifique. Nous avons considere dans ce...

La question de l'ideologie est peu etudiee par les economistes, qui preferent croire leur science immunisee contre le biais ideologique. Pourtant, il suffit de revenir auc sources de cette croyance pour redecouvrir l'inexorable dilemme lie a la conception marxienne de l'ideologie. Rien n'oblige...