This a chapter for the Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare. It deals with the theory of fairness applied to situations when individuals are partly responsible for their characteristics.

Common sense supports prevention policies aimed at improving survival prospects among the population. It is also widely acknowledged that an early death is a serious disadvantage, and that attention should be paid to the compensation of short-lived individuals. This paper re-examines 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 proposes four concepts of exploitation that encapsulate common uses of the word in social interactions: unfair advantage, unequal exchange, using persons as means, free-riding. It briefly discusses how these concepts appear in the literature (the first two are prominent in Roemer's...

We provide a general method for extending fair social preferences defined for riskless economic environments to the context of risk and uncertainty. We apply the méthod to the problems of managing unemployment allowances (in the context of macroeconomic fluctuations) and catastrophic risks (in...

The common practice consists in using a unique value of the discount rate for all public investments. Endorsing a social welfare approach to discounting, we show how different public investments should be discounted depending on: the risk on the return of the investment, the systematic risk on...

A premature death unexpectedly brings a life and a career to their end, leading to substantial welfare losses. We study the retirement decision in an economy with risky lifetime, and compare the laissez-faire with egalitarian social optima. We consider two social objectives: (1) the maximin on...

We provide a general method for extending fair social preferences defined for riskless economic environments to the context of risk and uncertainty. We apply the méthod to the problems of managing unemployment allowances (in the context of macroeconomic fluctuations) and catastrophic risks (in...

The common practice consists in using a unique value of the discount rate for all public investments. Endorsing a social welfare approach to discounting, we show how different public investments should be discounted depending on: the risk on the return of the investment, the systematic risk on...

We defend a methodology of discounting, for the evaluation of the long-term effects of climate policies, which relies on a social welfare objective, against the view that the market rate of return should be used for that purpose. We also show that in the long run, the discount rate for such...