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 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 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 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 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...

Recently there has been a resurgence in the interest in the determinants of income inequality across countries. This paper adds to this literature by examining the role of one further explanatory variable: macroeconomic volatility. Using a cross-section developed and developing countries, we...